The change brought about by technological advancements and global competition makes it imperative that organisations are nimble and adaptable to stay competitive.

The trend in the tertiary education sector has been to move away from specialised curriculum towards more holistic education, where learning is not just economics-driven, but also for the continuous nurturing of the whole person.

In response, Ngee Ann Polytechnic introduced the Ngee Ann Learning Model (NLM) in July 2001. The key objective of NLM is to introduce students to broad-based learning, where they are stretched to be more versatile and competitive in today's job market. When they graduate, they should be future-ready and have life-long employability.

Key Features of the NLM

Broad-based education combining discipline and interdisciplinary focus

• The NLM emphasises the importance of a balanced and broad-based education. To this end, the course curriculum has been designed to focus on two areas - the discipline area, and the inter-disciplinary area.
  
  
• Students from any course are offered a rich variety of discipline-specific modules to develop their core discipline skills. Within the inter-disciplinary course curriculum, they will find a carefully designed menu of Interdisciplinary Study (IS) modules. The IS modules are clustered under five categories:
  
  • Communication
  • Life skills
  • Media & the Arts
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Science & Technology
    
    
•  Some examples of IS modules are:

  • World Issues: A Singapore Perspective
  • Innovation & Enterprise in Action
  • Creativity and Applied Thinking Skills
  • Starting a Business
  • Fast Startup through Franchising
  • Entrepreneur and the Law
  • Business Etiquette and Image
  • Service Innovation
  • IT Applications
  • The Life Sciences Revolution
  • Product Innovation and Design
  • Communication Toolkit
  • Understanding the Media
  • Appreciating Literary Works
  • Self-expression: Drama and Poetry
  • Exploring Art and Design
  • Dance Sport
    

Nurturing the whole person

• The NLM's focus on a broad-based curriculum enables students to learn beyond the scope of their discipline area of studies.
  

Flexible learning system

• Under the NLM, students are more engaged in the learning process - they have greater control over when they learn, what they learn and how they learn.
  
  
• Students can choose from a range of electives within their discipline-specific course curriculum as well as within the Interdisciplinary Study (IS) course curriculum. Students are able to choose modules that appeal to their interests and abilities. In addition, flexible time-tabling enables them to exercise some choice on when a module is to be taken.