Joint Message from our Chairman and Principal & CEO

Envisioning a Shared and Sustainable Future

2023 was a landmark year for NP. Amongst the many milestones achieved, we celebrated 60 years of educational excellence, launched the NP2030 strategic thrusts, unveiled a new brand identity and embarked on our next green leap. Central to the theme of our annual report is thus the vision of building a shared and sustainable future with the NP community as we herald an exciting new chapter, creating the best outcomes for our learners and the industry.

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A Forward-Looking NP

In conjunction with NP’s 60th anniversary in 2023, we unveiled the NP2030 vision at the Staff Townhall, following a rigorous transformative strategic plan exercise. Underpinning the new direction is an unwavering focus to create greater value for our learners, partners, staff and the community at large, so that we can continue to make a positive impact on society and contribute to the growth of our nation. We have identified four strategic themes that will drive our efforts in harnessing the opportunities for tomorrow’s success:

• Southeast Asia Readiness

  As Southeast Asia (SEA) is poised to be the world’s fastest-growing region, we will grow SEA-ready talents to seize opportunities beyond Singapore and resource our businesses in spreading their wings abroad.

• Social Sustainability

  With increasing fragmentation and polarisation of our society, there is a role for NP to play in championing social sustainability. NP seeks to be a catalyst in this space by shaping communities through education, collaboration, research and practice.

• Flexible Pathways

  We seek to provide more flexibility for our learners to customize their own distinctive learning experiences and pursue their aspirations through diverse pathways.

• Industry Relevance

  To keep pace with rapid changes in the industry, we will make industry relevance pervasive in our curriculum so that our learners will graduate with in-demand skills and competencies that are highly valued by the industry.

The Next Green Leap

Building on our strengths in environmental stewardship over the last decade, we launched the Sustainability Education & Ecosystem Development (SEED) initiative in March as a springboard for our next green leap. Through SEED, NP will develop sustainability-intelligent talent for the green economy, spearhead sustainability-focused industry partnerships and create on-campus sandboxes to pilot green innovations with key players.

As part of the SEED initiative, we established the NP Built Environment Ecosystem (BEE) with 15 organisations including Johnson Controls, Keppel Limited, Meinhardt, Sodexo and Surbana Jurong to collectively transform the local built environment industry. Supported by JTC Corporation, the BEE will provide digital facilities management (FM) training for Whole-of-Government FM professionals to support Singapore’s goal of greening 80 percent of its buildings by 2030.

We will also partner with Keppel Limited to focus on brownfield development, transforming aged buildings into green assets and providing students with opportunities to develop in-demand skills. For a start, NP's Smart34 building will serve as a testbed for students to experiment with renewable energy, rainwater upcycling, and retrofitting to implement energy-efficient lighting, effective ventilation, and smart energy control systems.

To further strengthen our nexus with key players in the environmental sustainability space, we have repositioned our Environmental & Water Technology Centre of Innovation as the new Centre for Environmental Sustainability (CfES). The Centre will serve as a platform for spearheading collaborations between industry partners and our academic schools to develop solutions that address sustainability challenges and provide opportunities for our students to work on real-world projects.

With climate change and sustainability challenges a prevalent global concern, we hope that our steadfast efforts will contribute towards accelerating the nation's green transition.

Transformative Learning Pathways and Spaces

As the future of work is constantly evolving, it is imperative for us to continue to explore and provide more possibilities for our learners to thrive in the dynamic landscape. Since the inception of our Personalised Learning Pathway (PLP) in 2021, we are gratified to see more than 800 graduates from the Class of 2024 being awarded with a Minor on top of their Diploma. Under the PLP, our full-time diploma students have the option to pursue a Minor by completing three Learning Units (LUs) from the programme during their course of study. They can also choose to take up LUs from various disciplines without the fulfilment of a Minor. More than 1,600 students, or about 42 percent of the cohort that graduated in 2024, have voluntarily undertaken at least one LU. The encouraging response for our PLP will spur us on to give our students greater flexibility in designing their own learning experiences.

As part of our continuous commitment to provide industry-real learning in cutting-edge facilities for our learners, we welcome several industry partners to co-locate on our campus or jointly create unique learning spaces and opportunities.

One of them was Yinson GreenTech who set up green technology infrastructure on our campus, comprising an IoT-enabled smart energy management technology centre called synergy.lab, a solar farm and electric vehicle (EV) charging facilities powered by renewable energy. Aimed at nurturing the next generation of talent in the urban sustainability and smart mobility fields, the purpose-built green infrastructure serves as a ‘living lab’ for our students to explore real-world engineering solutions in green and smart mobility. Over 600 students will work on projects that delve into smart energy management technology and the application of AI to optimise green energy.

In June, our School of Film & Media Studies (FMS) launched the immersive M:idea Playground space alongside strategic partnerships with Aux Media Group Pte Ltd, Pixotope Technologies, and The Star Performing Arts Centre. The new M:idea Playground and curriculum offerings will train up to 200 FMS students annually in cutting-edge virtual production and immersive storytelling skills for projection mapping and technical theatre.

In conjunction with the launch of a new specialisation in Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) for our Diploma in Data Science course, we partnered Amazon Web Services (AWS) to develop the Gen AI Hub which is housed in our School of InfoComm Technology (ICT) in January. The new Hub provides a platform for our students to explore the possibilities of Gen AI and experience firsthand its transformative impact on industry application. In another collaboration with AWS, a cloud computing specialisation was introduced and over 500 ICT students can look forward to attaining industry-recognised certifications to augment their skill sets through the AWS Academy. Final-year students will also get to deepen their learning through a year-long internship at AWS.

In addition, ICT announced plans to set up a unique student-operated NP – Group-IB Threat Intelligence and Defence Centre (TIDC) powered by Group-IB’s industry-leading cybersecurity solutions. The TDIC will enable our Cybersecurity & Digital Forensics diploma students to gain valuable insights into proactive identification and management of actual cyber threats.

Shaping A Better World

At NP, we believe that we can help shape a better world and nurture critical life skills by providing our students with impactful learning opportunities in Singapore and the region.

Close to 270 students took part in Youth Expedition Projects, impacting over 1,500 individuals in 12 underserved communities across Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Applying their course skills, students worked on various Service-Learning projects that included infrastructure refurbishments, basic health screening, and the teaching of business, digital and English-speaking skills.

Furthermore, we conducted 26 runs of the Overseas Immersion Programme (OIP) for about 1,000 students across all academic schools. In today's interconnected world, where cross-cultural communication has emerged as a critical skill for career growth, OIP prepares our students to navigate cultural differences through immersive learning experiences with overseas universities in Thailand, China, Indonesia and Vietnam.

On the local front, our Office of Service-Learning (OSL) piloted six projects with partners to address societal challenges. Involving over 1,400 students from four academic schools, the projects encompassed health education and screening for seniors, raising environmental awareness, and promoting recycling. One such project saw 75 students from the Tourism & Resort Management course working with NParks to design, plan and execute a series of events targeting families with young children to advocate for biodiversity.

In addition, Dialogue in the Dark Singapore (DiDsg), a centre in NP that promotes diversity and inclusion, launched a new Living Space experience in July as part of its Tour in the Dark. Offering deeper insights into the world of the blind, fostering empathy and promoting inclusion, the new experience has benefitted over 5,000 participants to-date.

A Future Building on Our Past

It takes the commitment of a strong team of educators and professional staff to make NP succeed. We thank our dedicated staff for delivering their best in a demanding environment over the past six decades. We deeply appreciate parents, alumni, advisory committees, donors, industry and community partners, as well as our colleagues from the Ministry of Education, for their unstinting support. We are also grateful for the guidance of our fellow Council Members, and in particular, we would like to acknowledge the contributions of Ms Jan Chua, Mr Goh Kim Hock and Mr Jamie Teo who stepped down in 2023. At the same time, we warmly welcome three new members to the Council, and they are Ms Karen Chong, Ms Anna Ku Swee Ngein and Mr Baey Theng Mong.

As we chart our next lap embracing new experiences and challenges, we are filled with confidence knowing that the vision of a shared and sustainable future for all builds on our esteemed history of 60 good years. We will continue to grow, from strength to strength.