GERMAN vocational education director Hartmut Mattes recalls how Singapore was one of 13 developing countries his state of Baden-Wurttemburg decided to help 16 years ago.

The project coincided with the launch of the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) to spearhead a government drive to equip the poorest-performing quarter of secondary school leavers with skills to help them find jobs.

'After just four or five years, Singapore raced ahead of the pack which included Indonesia, Vietnam, Chile, Brazil, Algeria, Morocco and several other African countries,' he told The Straits Times in a telephone interview.

Today, says Mr Mattes, who runs the state's technical education, Singapore is first-world in vocational education.

He says it is even ahead of Germany in some areas, especially in new fields of technical training like infocommunications technology (animation, mobile games, new media) and hospitality and tourism.

Baden-Wurttemburg is a key reason Germany leads the world in vocational and technical skills. The state is home to Germany's automotive and high-tech engineering industry.

Mr Mattes isn't alone in his admiration. Last month, Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government validated the ITE's achievement in making vocational and technical education a thriving option for students.

It picked the ITE over more than 100 competitors worldwide, including the Singapore Treasury, to receive an IBM-sponsored award that recognises innovations in government programmes. The award, introduced 20 years ago, was limited to American entries until this year's contest.

By picking the ITE as the first global champion, the awards panel confirmed that the institute had reinvented itself from a school of last resort into a campus for students to find another route towards better jobs and higher education.

Wags used to say that ITE stood for the unfortunate phrase 'It's The End'.

Not any more.

Nine in 10 ITE graduates have found jobs within the last 10 years.

Four in 10 of its graduates go on to tertiary education at the polytechnics and university.

The number of students and graduation rates have swelled from 11,900 and 60 per cent respectively in 1995 to 24,600 and 81 per cent today.

But the school's real achievement, according to staff and students, is the tangible makeover of its charges, from viewing themselves as academic rejects to becoming confident, purposeful youths.

Almost half the graduates go on to obtain a diploma or a degree. 'This is the real value-add that ITE offers,' says Mr Bruce Poh, its chief executive officer. 'That's why we describe our system of education as 'ITE Care'.'

Motivating students by showing them that they are in a school that cares for them is the first, constant theme during their two-year course.

'Students who come to us are not high in confidence and self-esteem,' says Mr Poh. 'What the public misses is that the ITE infuses the kind of value-adding that transforms students this way.''

New students usually start with the baggage of a double whammy: They were not only backward scholastically, but also lost out to the academically stronger ones for personal development in leadership and co-curricular activities.

So the first task is to win their trust and motivate them. 'It is a long process and can take up the first six months, even as lessons get under way,' says Dr Yek Tiew Ming, principal of College West, one of the ITE's three colleges.

Even the physical change the ITE has embarked upon plays a role in communicating the message of care.

Its current infrastructure can be confusing because the colleges are in transition from several small campuses into three massive grounds.

The first of the three, the $240-million ITE College East, in Simei Avenue, was launched two years ago and has more than 8,000 students.

The other two, ITE College Central and ITE College West, each has five mini-campuses of under 2,000 students.

Training in top-notch facilities

In the next five years, College Central and College West will move into tertiary-size campuses in Ang Mo Kio and Choa Chu Kang respectively, each with about 8,000 students.

The change is partly aimed at sending a signal to the public and students that the ITE isn't a refuge for secondary school non-achievers but a stepping stone to tertiary education.

'Visitors from other countries ask us why we build such a big campus with the most modern equipment,'' says Mr Tan Seng Hua, principal of current flagship, College East.

He explains that the physical environment works in tandem with other efforts to convince students that they deserve the best - and are getting it.

It is part of the institute's entire effort to nurture not only latent talent, but hope and ambition as well.

Apart from a structured orientation programme, each fresh student has a senior buddy.

Home visits by teachers to acquaint themselves better with their students' background are not uncommon although staff are not required to do so, says Dr Yek.

Mega or minor, the atmosphere in the campuses is vibrant and oozes enthusiasm.

During breaks at the Simei campus, students relax in an amphitheatre located in the centre of the campus, watching videos on a large, sleek LCD monitor of their peers campaigning for student elections.

The seated stands, track and field are an athlete's dream. National football and track teams train there.

Nine-gold-medal Olympian Carl Lewis visited the school and held a clinic.

'We build first-class sports grounds and facilities like the amphitheatre because our students are strong in sports and performing arts,' says principal Tan.

The rapport between students and teachers is relaxed and informal. 'The teachers are the best of all,' says final-year biochemical technology student Shiqah Samad, 20. She transferred from junior college to ITE and described the switch as a journey from misery to joy.

She dreaded junior college because she was afraid of seeking help from her teachers. 'At my junior college, teachers expected students to keep up and even if you couldn't, you had to give the impression that you did.

'Here, when you don't know, it means you don't know and the teachers know that and exactly how you feel. They are cheery and want us to understand what's being taught.'

College Central's principal Ricky Tam describes a happy problem at his School of Infocomm Technology on the MacPherson campus. It offers the only collaborative digital animation course in Singapore involving a cutting-edge company, Toon Boom of Canada.

'We have to remind our digital animation students to go home,' he says.

'They love what they do so much, they'll camp overnight here to work on their projects if they can,' adds the school's director, Ms Yeo Sock Tin.

Employers see the transformation as well. Mr James Foo, Singapore president of Swiss-based high-tech engineering multinational ABB, says that his company was wary of hiring ITE graduates in the past.

Now, the graduates are better-trained and confident because of superior facilities and resources.

One key reason is that the ITE listens to and works closely with industrial and commercial leaders like ABB, Microsoft and IBM and lesser-known but influential ones like Toon Boom.

It invests in training centres for each of these on its premises and the companies reciprocate by sharing their resources and training ITE staff and students.

Singapore's international street-fashion industry icon Elim Chew of 77th Street allowed the ITE to replicate her store in College East to train students in running a retail outlet. 'An ITE education is superb for hands-on practical education,' she says.

Yet, the ITE's image as the forced refuge of the academic underclass is hard to shake. Public perception in general, and parents in particular, remain sceptical. More than half still view the ITE negatively.

'It's a difficult question for Singapore,' says Germany's Mr Mattes.

The difference between Singapore and Germany is that vocational training is still seen in Singapore as the least preferred educational route, he says.

'In Germany, it has never been the attitude of the less able going into vocational education.'

Germany's vocational training has a 300-year history, its graduates command wages that match academic professionals like teachers.

'Germany has incorporated a sense of social acceptability that Singapore has not,' he says.

He believes that changing mindsets cannot be achieved overnight but incrementally, over time.

ITE chief Bruce Poh agrees that its image as the last-chance route will be hard to crack.

'The public still has this reservation,' he says. 'The initial response to an ITE education is still, 'well, not my son, not my daughter'.'

For now, that is a price the ITE seems prepared to pay.

Its primary mission, says Mr Poh, is not to attract the best and the brightest, but to unlock the undiscovered talents of a quarter of Singapore's post-secondary youth.

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