Portal opens doors for adult learners

Portal opens doors for adult learners

After 14 years in the bread-baking business, Mr Hafizh Abdul Ghani, 35, decided to go back to school to pursue his interest in sports.

The former school athlete, who played rugby and ran as a teen, searched for four months before he found a diploma in sports coaching at Republic Polytechnic.

"It was difficult trying to find a suitable course," said Mr Hafizh, who will start as an allied educator at Edgefield Secondary School next Monday after three years at the polytechnic.

"There wasn't a system to compare available courses."

Adult learners looking for a career switch or skills upgrading can now search for Continuing Education and Training (CET) programmes with the launch of the GetCET.sg portal yesterday.

The centralised online course directory, developed by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and Ngee Ann Polytechnic, provides access to information on 250 part-time courses offered by publicly funded universities, polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education.

The CET courses, subsidised by MOE, lead to qualifications such as diplomas and degrees.

With the portal, which brings together information previously found only on the institutions' own websites, users can search for and compare courses and even obtain information on the available financial aid.

A GetCET.sg mobile app will be available to Android and iOS devices next month.

At the Tanglin-Cairnhill Edusave Awards ceremony at the Henderson Community Club yesterday, Senior Minister of State for Law and Education Indranee Rajah said: "If you go for further education, you get better at what you currently do. For some people, it gives them the opportunity to reset their lives because they may want a change in direction."

calyang@sph.com.sg


This article was first published on January 15, 2015.
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