Singapore (Singapore) — The National University of Singapore (NUS), which is recognized for its innovative approach to education, has managed to keep on-campus classrooms open for the most part during the COVID-19 outbreak by devising ingenious techniques to keep the deadly virus at bay. The school has only postponed lessons once since the pandemic began more than a year ago, from April to June of last year, when the government imposed a temporary lockdown. NUS President Tan Eng Chye is one person who has played a vital role in the university’s antiviral efforts. Tan has devised a series of precautions to keep students and faculty safe, including zoning regulations that allocate students to specific regions of campus and analyzing dormitory sewage for traces of the virus. Despite these measures, the university’s recent decision to cancel its long-planned in-person commencement shows the challenges faced by educational institutions during the pandemic. Tan wrote to staff and students on May 20: “The current situation is quite fluid, and the outlook is unpredictable.” “As a result, I’ve informed both the Class of 2020 and the Class of 2021 that the University will no longer be able to perform in-person Commencement ceremonies for the two cohorts, which were set to take place from June 17 to July 31, 2021.” Due to an increase in COVID-19 cases, the government announced the day before that all primary, secondary, and junior college students would transition to full home-based learning. Tan, who was keen to hold an in-person graduation ceremony, noted, “The choice to transition to online ceremonies was not made lightly.” Last year, due to the pandemic, NUS was unable to do so. A series of commencements had been planned by the university. The plan was to divide around 69,000 people into groups of 750 people three times a day for a month or more, including 23,000 graduating students from the Class of 2020 and 2021, as well as their parents. Graduation is a significant symbol for NUS, which emphasizes the importance of face-to-face connection in education. It is not only the last major milestone for university students and their parents.
Tan Eng Chye, President of NUS, poses in front of noteworthy alumni.
Since late January of last year, Tan has been battling the new coronavirus. A colleague informed him that something major was going on in China at the moment, forcing him to cancel his travel to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He planned to bring back roughly 50 NUS students studying in China on his trip back to Singapore. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged over the world, he eventually urged all NUS students studying abroad to return home. Tan fought to keep in-person classes running despite the pandemic, gathering and analyzing data on a regular basis using a WhatsApp group that included the deans of all faculties as well as senior officials. “It is crucial to continue to have that face-to-face interaction because it is not as successful, as far as learning is concerned, to be totally online,” he said of on-campus learning for classes with less than 50 students.
Before the outbreak, NUS students on the campus lawn:
During the epidemic, the university divided its three campuses into five zones to limit student contact. (Photo courtesy of the National University of Singapore)
After resuming in-person classes in June of last year, NUS split its three campuses into five zones to reduce student interaction for nearly six months to keep the coronavirus off campus.
Wi-Fi and an on-campus app are used to track all students, instructors, and staff entering and exiting university facilities. If consumers spend more than 30 minutes in a zone other than the one allotted to them, the app alerts them to return to their original zone. While the Singapore government led efforts to watch who entered and exited workplaces and commercial complexes, NUS quickly devised and implemented similar systems on campus. NUS also implemented a system to monitor sewage in dormitories for indicators of infection in December of last year. All 400 or so occupants were isolated and tested for infection after low quantities of COVID-19 virus material were discovered in one dormitory in March. All of the tests were negative. Tan dismisses the system’s plaudits, adding, “It’s actually quite simple. Most colleges with an engineering department, I believe, are capable of doing so.” However, few colleges are capable of acting so rapidly and aggressively in the face of a catastrophe. According to Tan, NUS has been ready to assemble a crisis management team at a moment’s notice since the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003.
After the semester ends in June, a student lounge on the NUS campus. The institution has made every effort to maintain as many in-person classes as feasible.
NUS tries to provide career help to students in addition to retaining face-to-face training. NUS is known for its NUS Overseas Colleges (NOC), which have been helping students build entrepreneurial skills in startups in Silicon Valley, Beijing, and Israel for decades. Many students, however, were forced to return home because to the pandemic. NUS arranged internship programs with over 100 domestic companies to assist them in completing their degrees. Jeremy Ong, a biomedical engineering major, was one of these interns. In mid-January 2020, he embarked on the NOC program to Stockholm, only to be compelled to return home two months later. Prior to his internship, Ong collaborated with classmates on a project to use virtual reality technology to instruct doctors and medical students. He couldn’t afford to miss his internship at a health-care start-up in Sweden. When his internship was cut short owing to the COVID, NUS provided him with a referral, which enabled him to acquire a new internship as a project manager with a Singaporean business. Ong hopes to start a VR-assisted doctor-training business this year after graduating from NUS in June. “Both in Stockholm and in Singapore, the entire program expanded my horizons. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I was afraid that if I didn’t go for NOC, I wouldn’t be able to acquire it at school. It’s something that only NOC can provide “he stated
Jeremy Ong, on the right, hopes to start a medical device company with his classmates later this year. (Jeremy Ong provided the photo.)
Students who have been unable to find work can now participate in on-campus internships at NUS. Only 75% of last year’s grads found work, down from 90% before the epidemic, amid the worst economic environment since Singapore’s independence. Despite this, NUS was able to bridge the gap using internship programs and government funding. The institution has established a fund to assist financially disadvantaged students whose parents were laid off as a result of the pandemic. Tan stated in early May that NUS was still operating at “60 percent.” When the next semester begins in August, it will be unable to resume NOC and its student exchange program. “We believe that our pupils need to be exposed to real-world issues. It’s more difficult to duplicate the experiential component “Tan remarked. “As a result, we’re even more keen to send our NOC pupils out first.” Lifelong learning, a broad intellectual foundation, and more interdisciplinary teaching and learning are three crucial characteristics for university education in the twenty-first century, according to Tan. NUS adapts its curriculum to match the demands of the times on a regular basis. It will, for example, allow engineering students to take classes at the school of design and environment, and vice versa, beginning in August. Although there is no end in sight for COVID-19, NUS is already planning for the future. Continue reading
