Healthcare industry offers over 1,100 jobs at Healthcare Career Fair

Healthcare industry offers over 1,100 jobs at Healthcare Career Fair
By Evelyn Choo 

	Photos 1 of 1 Singapore nurses at Changi General hospital

SINGAPORE: More than 1,000 jobs in the healthcare sector were offered at a career fair held in the heartlands on Sunday morning.

The North East CDC said two in five positions were targeted at PMETs.

More than a thousand people turned up to see what seven healthcare companies had to offer.

These included the Singapore General Hospital, Changi General Hospital, National Healthcare Group Polyclinics, Alexandra Health, NTUC ElderCare, MOH Holdings, and Jurong Health Services, who will manage the new Jurong General Hospital.

The National Healthcare Group Polyclinics and MOH Holdings received 500 job applications each.

For some, the lack of experience in the industry did not worry them, as training would be provided.

Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said: "There are also training providers here who will help prepare them for jobs in the healthcare industry. These can be funded through SPUR programmes. The course fees and some training allowance."

Teo Ser Luck, Senior Parliamentary Secretary of Community Development, Youth and Sports, said: "Not all jobs are needing some specialisation, some are more general in nature. So I think for those who are job seekers, they can consider the health care sector - relatively recession-proof and at the same time, they don't pay too badly."

- wong chee tat :) 

Over 5,500 job opportunities at career and education exhibition

Over 5,500 job opportunities at career and education exhibition
Posted: 04 March 2010 1948 hrs

	Photos 1 of 1

 

SINGAPORE : Singapore's largest career and education exhibition opened on Thursday at the Suntec International Convention and Exhibition centre.

Over 5,500 job opportunities are on offer at Career and Training 2010: Education 2010.

Over 320 companies and schools from 12 countries are taking part.

The two integrated resorts are also recruiting.

One of them, Marina Bay Sands, is looking to fill 500 job vacancies.

Over eight state and private universities are also participating in the exhibition.

Over 300,000 visitors are expected at the exhibition which ends on Sunday. 

- CNA/ms

- wong chee tat :)

GMAT cheating worries US colleges

GMAT cheating worries US colleges
Thu, Dec 17, 2009
China Daily/Asia News Network

US universities are concerned about Chinese students' cheating on entrance exams across the country, according to experts.

"Anything from China is suspect in the United States now in the education realm," said Steven Dickinson, a China-based lawyer and former law professor at the University of Washington who worked with the school's admissions office to select international candidates.

The problem stems not necessarily from the students themselves but rather from the resources Chinese rely on to study for admissions tests, like the Graduate Record Examinations and the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT).

In 2008, 98,510 Chinese students went to study in the US, growing 21 percent over 2007, a report by the Institute of International Education said. China was the second largest source of foreign students in the US after India.

The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which distributes the GMAT exam, sued Passion for copyright infringement after it posted "live" test questions from GMAT exams online and distributed PDFs from test books.

A Beijing court ordered Beijing Passion Consultancy Ltd on Nov 23 to pay a fine of 520,000 yuan (S$106,496) for copyright infringement and publicly apologize for its actions.

Passion, a company that has trained around one third of Chinese students applying to the top 10 American business schools, said on Tuesday that it was sorry for selling GMAT materials without authorization.

After testing materials were removed, the traffic of Passion's website dropped by 70 percent in the past week, according to Internet traffic monitoring website Alexa.com.

Chinese students frequent a number of websites that reportedly hire staff to pose as test-takers and post reconstructed "live" questions from the exams for free online. Some of the proxy test-takers have employed hi-tech gadgets, including cameras and microphones, to obtain exam material.

"They will hire people to take the test and then steal the test book," Dickinson said. "Or they will get even more nasty and get an insider to send the text book that is coming out next and then get the answers to certain tests."

Even with GMAC's litigation against Passion, many other test-prep websites exist providing materials to Chinese students facing stiff competition to get into foreign schools.

Universities publish grade profiles as guide for course applicants

Universities publish grade profiles as guide for course applicants
By Sufian Suderman, TODAY | Posted: 13 February 2009

SINGAPORE: The days when junior college and polytechnic students engage in the guessing game - will they or won't they get a place in a coveted varsity course - may be over.

For the first time, all three public universities - Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National University of Singapore (NUS) and Singapore Management University (SMU) - have published their lists of "grade profiles" for A-level students and "grade point average (GPA)" for polytechnic students to help them assess their chances of getting into the various undergraduate courses offered by the universities.

For example, for NUS' 2008 admission exercise, students who were offered places to its law and medicine faculties generally scored 4As for three H2 and one H1 subjects.

The move comes following calls by various quarters in recent years for the universities to be more transparent about their entry requirements.

Students interviewed by TODAY welcomed the publication of the lists - but some wondered if even more information could be released.

Second-year polytechnic student Gerlynn Chan, 18, said: "The universities should have done this a long time ago. However, certain courses like the Mass Communication course from NTU also require you to take several tests and interviews ... so I think they should provide more of such information regarding such aspects."

JC student Chua Han Wee, 19, who is waiting for his A-level results, feels that "grades should not be the only consideration".

"Consistency of a student's performance in co-curricular activities (CCAs) should also be taken into account." he added.

Mr Alan Goh, SMU's director of undergraduate admissions, said the grade profiles are meant to be "an indicative guide". All applicants are assessed on "SMU's holistic selection process, which includes their academic standing and CCA achievements". (here * Ed: Info may change)

An NUS spokesperson said: "The exact requirements will vary depending on the specific course and is ultimately determined by the strength of the applicant pool each year."

The publication of grade profiles has made students such as 18-year-old Khalid Khan realise that they need to study harder if they want to earn a place in the university.

The polytechnic student in media and communication said: "I'm now coming to year 3. This means I've got only a year to get a minimum of GPA 3 to have a higher chance of entering any of these local universities."

For more information, visit the universities' respective websites.

- TODAY/fa

- wong chee tat :)