18 July 2016

Acting Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills) Ong Ye Kung has encouraged students to be different and not settle for being cookie-cutter graduates.

He made these remarks whilst addressing the graduating class of the Singapore Management University (SMU) last week at the university’s 13th commencement held at Suntec Singapore.

Earlier this month, Mr Ong had also urged Singapore’s universities not chase rankings at the expense of their role in advancing Singapore. He said that while the rise in the rankings of the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University are very significant achievements that we can be very proud of, we must also recognise that rankings, done by private organisations, are based on criteria that may not entirely align with the public missions of our universities. He also said that rankings provide a gauge of the quality of our institutions, but they do not do justice to the intangible and important role that universities play in shaping our society and nurturing Singaporeans.

Putting Mr Ong’s words into action is Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) Valedictorian Award winner Sharon Yeo who graduated from the Lee Kong Chian School of Business with a Bachelor of Business Management. She is part of a two-member team that founded Protege, a mentorship software start-up company that helps organisations manage mentoring programmes.