sometimes I not sure this person know or don't know.
Just see those Poly " marketing IT courses way back early 2000 '
now already 2021 , 21 years later ? In the end?
IT people get from cecaland is cheaper lah.
Besides, nowadays scoring three As in A-level exam is longer as uncommon as it was 20-30 years ago.
(20-12-2021, 11:10 AM)starbugs Wrote: [ -> ]IT people get from cecaland is cheaper lah.
Besides, nowadays scoring three As in A-level exam is longer as uncommon as it was 20-30 years ago.
Is more due to those lectures NEVER upgrade themselves, Still teach 10 years series to Students.
Quote:A friend's son scored three As in his A-level exam but could not get a place in the NUS School of Computing, and had to choose a different course instead
Why we make our students attend courses with poor demand and less prospects then import people to take lucrative jobs.
My tuition attention grades are nit as good but he would be able to study and take up jobs in the area....I am sure he is batter than most of those we bring in from India in terms of academic ability if only given the chance.
Heard few years back those staff/lecturers from cecaland quite lousy and with questionable certificates. Don't know now.
Our IT course here is not very specialised. Learn everything under the sun in IT and therefore learn only the basic and got no time to specialised. Basic means learning all that was used decades ago.
So come out half past six.
(20-12-2021, 11:58 AM)klat Wrote: [ -> ]Our IT course here is not very specialised. Learn everything under the sun in IT and therefore learn only the basic and got no time to specialised. Basic means learning all that was used decades ago.
So come out half past six.
this is why AGAIN " fool around by these minister " just because they reassign for new Ministries.
See how Chan Chung Sing talk about education yesterday ......STILL DARE claim " what his past experience as Trade Ministry "
Not wise to put all eggs into one basket. If we have many doing IT and the field cooled later then what's our IT people going to do? Same thing happened to our semicon industry many years ago.
IT involves a lot of hands-on, innovations and technology catch-up. wonder if the local uni could provide such education and training
(20-12-2021, 01:56 PM)WhatDoYouThink? Wrote: [ -> ]IT involves a lot of hands-on, innovations and technology catch-up. wonder if the local uni could provide such education and training
You are right to say needs lots of hands-on, innovations and technology. If our local graduates cannot provide this education, then they should scout for specialists in this field by recruiting overseas experts to conduct such courses.....
(20-12-2021, 01:51 PM)Blasterlord2 Wrote: [ -> ]Not wise to put all eggs into one basket. If we have many doing IT and the field cooled later then what's our IT people going to do? Same thing happened to our semicon industry many years ago.
SG education system actually " go by trend " which industries will be the next big thing they will focus on it but end up reality don't seem workable.
Look early 2000 focus on IT , as after IT bubble burst in late 90s , later IT sector regain fast, later early 2000 , come what " Life science " than later nursing , now learn to be " modern farmer " using technology, also back to IT
you can see they go by " trend " which industries will be next big thing .
To me , NEVER chase trend. End of the day.
(20-12-2021, 02:17 PM)[[ForeverAlone]] Wrote: [ -> ]SG education system actually " go by trend " which industries will be the next big thing they will focus on it but end up reality don't seem workable.
Look early 2000 focus on IT , as after IT bubble burst in late 90s , later IT sector regain fast, later early 2000 , come what " Life science " than later nursing , now learn to be " modern farmer " using technology, also back to IT
you can see they go by " trend " which industries will be next big thing .
To me , NEVER chase trend. End of the day.
I see you argument.....it is the present trend that is important......
(20-12-2021, 02:17 PM)[[ForeverAlone]] Wrote: [ -> ]SG education system actually " go by trend " which industries will be the next big thing they will focus on it but end up reality don't seem workable.
Look early 2000 focus on IT , as after IT bubble burst in late 90s , later IT sector regain fast, later early 2000 , come what " Life science " than later nursing , now learn to be " modern farmer " using technology, also back to IT
you can see they go by " trend " which industries will be next big thing .
To me , NEVER chase trend. End of the day.
Yea, actually you've touched on the curx of the issue. The schools are always supplying seats for courses based on what is the CURRENT demand and supply situation. The problem is they plan their cohort and determine the seats 1 - 2 years before intake, then the students spend another 3 - 4 years studying and graduating.
By the time the planned cohort of students reach the labour market, it's already ~5 years since the courses were planned. That's why there's always a shortage and surplus of the people with the wrong qualification for the market. This problem has happened multiple times in the past decades already:
1) Late 80s early 90s - Electrical Engineering
2) Early - mid 90s - IT
3) Late 90s - early 2000 - Internet
4) Early 2000 - 2008 - Banking & Finance
5) Late 2000s - Mid 2010s - Biotech / Life Science
6) Late 2010s - Present - AI / Big Data / VR
I always tell youngsters who are thinking of choosing course to study based on what is the current trend NEVER to do that. What you can see as hot is now, what is hot when you actually finish study and look for jobs is completely different. The worst is Singapore males, you choose your university course at 18, by the time you finish and look for job already 25.
Nowadays I still see many CVs of youngsters studying Biotech and Life Science during the mid 2010s applying for jobs that have nothing to do with this so called super hot industry in the past. When I asked them why are they applying for or ended up with their first job in places like Marketing, HR, PR, Events etc. the most common answer is way too little openings in these areas and too many people of the same cohort fighting for it.
Many of our problems lie with ourselves, or rather, on how our perspectives of things are shaped by the govt. I have seen many tech people in other countries moving from industry to industry with very little barrier and very little discrimination.
In Singapore, people seem to develop a mentality that when you're trained in one specialization, you've got to remain in this area, and if you moved around then it's because you're a reject, or that you got no choice.
In my opinion, people should be trained in the technical fields, because it developed their logical thinking and then they can move on to do other things. An engineer can be transited to do business and marketing but the other way is usually not possible. But now, engineering has become a dirty word, and has become an occupation even less desirable than those of the business and marketing streams. AI and data analytics jobs that are so hot now could be easily filled by engineers, since in truth, these areas actually involved a lot less mathematics and complexity than engineering. Instead, no, employers tend to look for 'IT trained personnel', and thus restrict their choice and they had to look for overseas talents.
In order to have less dependency on foreigners, Singaporeans must first be prepared to accept the mobility of our own people across different domains. The education system cannot predict trends, and never can, because the future is unpredictable. Only by having our people develop immense curiosity and trained esp. in the core technical skills can they have more options in the job market.
(20-12-2021, 04:47 PM)Blasterlord2 Wrote: [ -> ]In my opinion, people should be trained in the technical fields, because it developed their logical thinking and then they can move on to do other things. An engineer can be transited to do business and marketing but the other way is usually not possible. But now, engineering has become a dirty word, and has become an occupation even less desirable than those of the business and marketing streams. AI and data analytics jobs that are so hot now could be easily filled by engineers, since in truth, these areas actually involved a lot less mathematics and complexity than engineering. Instead, no, employers tend to look for 'IT trained personnel', and thus restrict their choice and they had to look for overseas talents.
I broadly agree with your comment on the need to be flexible and hop amongst industries, but I must point out that the example you've given isn't that valid. The sort of AI and data analytics jobs that companies are willing to hire in Singapore as opposed to India are very specialized. While engineers have training in logic and math, it's not possible to just pick up an engineer with no professional training to take up the sort of AI roles that are hired in Singapore.
Companies are not dumb. The current starting pay for fresh grads in AI and data analytics has already breached 6k or even 7k in a lot of startups, if it were that simple and can be "easily filled by engineers", companies would have paid 3.5k and just suck in all of them. The tech jobs that an engineer can easily fill through logic and design thinking are mostly either project management or if technical, offshored already.
(20-12-2021, 05:01 PM)maxsanic Wrote: [ -> ]I broadly agree with your comment on the need to be flexible and hop amongst industries, but I must point out that the example you've given isn't that valid. The sort of AI and data analytics jobs that companies are willing to hire in Singapore as opposed to India are very specialized. While engineers have training in logic and math, it's not possible to just pick up an engineer with no professional training to take up the sort of AI roles that are hired in Singapore.
Companies are not dumb. The current starting pay for fresh grads in AI and data analytics has already breached 6k or even 7k in a lot of startups, if it were that simple and can be "easily filled by engineers", companies would have paid 3.5k and just suck in all of them. The tech jobs that an engineer can easily fill through logic and design thinking are mostly either project management or if technical, offshored already.
Let's face it. In any specialization, about 70% of the trained personnel are of 'normal' levels. Out of the 30% or even less who are experts, many are researchers (these people think of new ways of fine-tuning algorithms).
In Singapore, the shortage is largely in the 'normal' category, since they mostly make use of tools that are already developed. Neither do these people develop new algorithms, or at least their focus isn't on this.
It's not just my own opinion. I've spoken to many AT specialist and CTOs who have the same thinking. They explicitly told me that AI engineers can be trained in a matter of months. How these people can get 6k and above is attributed to hype. Even the engineers who haven't dealt with AI before succumbed to the supposed difficulty simply because of the big name of 'AI'. In truth, after they work on it, they'll realize AI is not that complicated.
Out of my own interest, I studied AI for a period of time and came to the same conclusion.
(20-12-2021, 05:15 PM)Blasterlord2 Wrote: [ -> ]Let's face it. In any specialization, about 70% of the trained personnel are of 'normal' levels. Out of the 30% or even less who are experts, many are researchers (these people think of new ways of fine-tuning algorithms).
In Singapore, the shortage is largely in the 'normal' category, since they mostly make use of tools that are already developed. Neither do these people develop new algorithms, or at least their focus isn't on this.
It's not just my own opinion. I've spoken to many AT specialist and CTOs who have the same thinking. They explicitly told me that AI engineer can be trained in a matter of months. How these people can get 6k and above is attributed to hype. Even the engineers who haven't dealt with AI before succumbed to the supposed difficulty simply because the big name of 'AI'. In truth, after they work on it, they'll realize AI is not that complicated.
Ok, but this issue has been around for some years already. If like you say the CTOs also think it can be easily done by spending a few months to train much cheaper engineers, why isn't everyone doing it?
Why is the starting salary for such jobs still increasing exponentially? I can accept maybe first 3 months situation not clear companies kalan kabo so overpay for talent, but AI talent shortage has been around for at least 3 years and till now the shortage is getting even more acute, salaries even higher. Why aren't companies doing this 3 month engineer conversion on a mass scale? Honestly I find it hard to attribute this to just "government and Singaporeans mentality being inflexible".
that's true. those courses train users to use expensive off-the-shelf tools, not to develop or innovate better and new algorithms
(20-12-2021, 05:20 PM)maxsanic Wrote: [ -> ]Ok, but this issue has been around for some years already. If like you say the CTOs also think it can be easily done by spending a few months to train much cheaper engineers, why isn't everyone doing it?
Why is the starting salary for such jobs still increasing exponentially? I can accept maybe first 3 months situation not clear companies kalan kabo so overpay for talent, but AI talent shortage has been around for at least 3 years and till now the shortage is getting even more acute, salaries even higher. Why aren't companies doing this 3 month engineer conversion on a mass scale? Honestly I find it hard to attribute this to just "government and Singaporeans mentality being inflexible".
You can ask Ah Butt about it. He bought a GPU card recently to train some data with it, I think with the aim of predicting the market.
Like I said, many engineers themselves are too overwhelmed with the hype generated by AI that they didn't even look into it properly, hence they're reluctant to move to a new area which sounds like it's very difficult. I looked into AI some 6 years ago because some business owners wanted me to do a project with them. In all honesty, I too thought that it's crazy for someone not trained in it to be doing it. After some time looking into it, I now know it's not the case.
(20-12-2021, 01:51 PM)Blasterlord2 Wrote: [ -> ]Not wise to put all eggs into one basket. If we have many doing IT and the field cooled later then what's our IT people going to do? Same thing happened to our semicon industry many years ago.
That's a wrong comparison. Semicon need IT, construction need IT. In fact, every damn thing need IT. So how to compare semicon with IT?
The IT market is spoilt by the open policy. Govt want to bring in extra manpower to supplement local IT manpower.
But govt never keep things in check, so end up is local supplementing IT manpower.
(20-12-2021, 04:19 PM)maxsanic Wrote: [ -> ]Yea, actually you've touched on the curx of the issue. The schools are always supplying seats for courses based on what is the CURRENT demand and supply situation. The problem is they plan their cohort and determine the seats 1 - 2 years before intake, then the students spend another 3 - 4 years studying and graduating.
By the time the planned cohort of students reach the labour market, it's already ~5 years since the courses were planned. That's why there's always a shortage and surplus of the people with the wrong qualification for the market. This problem has happened multiple times in the past decades already:
1) Late 80s early 90s - Electrical Engineering
2) Early - mid 90s - IT
3) Late 90s - early 2000 - Internet
4) Early 2000 - 2008 - Banking & Finance
5) Late 2000s - Mid 2010s - Biotech / Life Science
6) Late 2010s - Present - AI / Big Data / VR
I always tell youngsters who are thinking of choosing course to study based on what is the current trend NEVER to do that. What you can see as hot is now, what is hot when you actually finish study and look for jobs is completely different. The worst is Singapore males, you choose your university course at 18, by the time you finish and look for job already 25.
Nowadays I still see many CVs of youngsters studying Biotech and Life Science during the mid 2010s applying for jobs that have nothing to do with this so called super hot industry in the past. When I asked them why are they applying for or ended up with their first job in places like Marketing, HR, PR, Events etc. the most common answer is way too little openings in these areas and too many people of the same cohort fighting for it.
Seem like not Just only I claim, you also noticed. Yup. I feel kinda ..... when the Gov can claim " in need IT talents so get CECA " I was? remember early 2000? Gov isn't pushing for IT ? Polys out there all come out " new course as usual IT is the next big thing "
21 years later Gov can claim " in need IT talents ? "
medical doctors aso in serious shortage. another misplanning
(20-12-2021, 06:18 PM)ArielCasper Wrote: [ -> ]That's a wrong comparison. Semicon need IT, construction need IT. In fact, every damn thing need IT. So how to compare semicon with IT?
The IT market is spoilt by the open policy. Govt want to bring in extra manpower to supplement local IT manpower.
But govt never keep things in check, so end up is local supplementing IT manpower.
IT is very diverse. When you said each field needs IT, you are actually talking about many different things. It's better that you have people who are versatile than people who only want to do one kind of work. If you have more people doing IT then you'll have fewer people in other fields. It's not possible to do that with our small population, and so yes, I support foreigners to supplement our work force.
(20-12-2021, 06:55 PM)Blasterlord2 Wrote: [ -> ]IT is very diverse. When you said each field needs IT, you are actually talking about many different things. It's better that you have people who are versatile than people who only want to do one kind of work. If you have more people doing IT then you'll have fewer people in other fields. It's not possible to do that with our small population, and so yes, I support foreigners to supplement our work force.
One thing, is Now easy to hire Freelancer or remote IT workers.
No need to pay so much for a person report come work at 9am later 5pm knock off work.
Yet PAY so much.
This is one thing I not sure Gov knows , this trend already happen for years ever since Internet evolve , Digital Marketing etc
all of you can pinpoint the problems.
so far, no one can suggest solution to solve our IT talent shortage with local talents ?
(20-12-2021, 06:18 PM)ArielCasper Wrote: [ -> ]That's a wrong comparison. Semicon need IT, construction need IT. In fact, every damn thing need IT. So how to compare semicon with IT?
The IT market is spoilt by the open policy. Govt want to bring in extra manpower to supplement local IT manpower.
But govt never keep things in check, so end up is local supplementing IT manpower.
IT used to refer to only software on computer and servers in the past.
IT and electronics overlap one another more since 2010, also as financial sector moves digital.
It is now very wide, cover applications, servers, security, gaming, communication etc.
Sg cannot afford to cover all, must focus a few, localize those niche or fundamental areas according to Sg strength.
To depend mostly foreign without any core is commit suicide.
(20-12-2021, 04:47 PM)Blasterlord2 Wrote: [ -> ]Many of our problems lie with ourselves, or rather, on how our perspectives of things are shaped by the govt. I have seen many tech people in other countries moving from industry to industry with very little barrier and very little discrimination.
In Singapore, people seem to develop a mentality that when you're trained in one specialization, you've got to remain in this area, and if you moved around then it's because you're a reject, or that you got no choice.
In my opinion, people should be trained in the technical fields, because it developed their logical thinking and then they can move on to do other things. An engineer can be transited to do business and marketing but the other way is usually not possible. But now, engineering has become a dirty word, and has become an occupation even less desirable than those of the business and marketing streams. AI and data analytics jobs that are so hot now could be easily filled by engineers, since in truth, these areas actually involved a lot less mathematics and complexity than engineering. Instead, no, employers tend to look for 'IT trained personnel', and thus restrict their choice and they had to look for overseas talents.
In order to have less dependency on foreigners, Singaporeans must first be prepared to accept the mobility of our own people across different domains. The education system cannot predict trends, and never can, because the future is unpredictable. Only by having our people develop immense curiosity and trained esp. in the core technical skills can they have more options in the job market.
Well said, and I concur......
(20-12-2021, 08:51 PM)forum456 Wrote: [ -> ]all of you can pinpoint the problems.
so far, no one can suggest solution to solve our IT talent shortage with local talents ?
The solution is to import more people. By making singapore into a melting pot of talents, it will attract more companies to set up shop, expand the ecosystem.
(20-12-2021, 10:44 PM)guffaw Wrote: [ -> ]The solution is to import more people. By making singapore into a melting pot of talents, it will attract more companies to set up shop, expand the ecosystem.
if you import more foreigners, more IT jobs will go to foreigners.
More IT jobs should go to local talents and not foreigners.
Foreigners is to supplement when there is shortage and not to replace locals.