NTU's Career Support: Good Start, But Are We Preparing Students for the Real Competition?

NTU's enhanced year-long career support is welcome news, but let's address the elephant in the room: Singapore's open economy means our graduates compete globally while working locally. Most desirable industries are open markets where citizenship provides minimal advantage. The truly protected sectors? Politics (high barriers), gig work (low pay), and defense (short careers).

The Skills-Gap Reality

MP Jamus Lim recently highlighted a critical insight about the AI-driven economy: success now "calls for a much different set of skills: soft skills like networking, marketing, and sales, human traits like creativity, empathy, and intuition, or perhaps artisan talents like fine motor movements, individual personalization, and cultural expression. We don't stress these enough in our academically-oriented educational system, but to survive in the unfolding AI future, we'll need to."

This perfectly captures the challenge. Singapore students excel academically but often lack the human-centric skills that AI can't replicate. These are precisely the skills that provide competitive advantage in an open economy flooded with technically qualified foreign professionals.

What Students Really Need

While comprehensive career support is essential, there are several areas that deserve equal attention in this broader conversation about student success:

• Early Intervention is Key: Career guidance shouldn't start in university. It needs to begin much earlier. The DSA process, subject selection in secondary school, and even CCA choices all shape career trajectories long before students reach NTU's doors. Educational consultants increasingly see families seeking guidance as early as Primary 5 and 6, recognizing that strategic planning pays dividends.

• Global Competitive Mindset: Understand you're competing internationally, not locally. Being Singaporean is an advantage only when leveraged strategically through cultural understanding, regional networks, or regulatory expertise.

• Human-Centric Skills Development: Focus on creativity, empathy, cultural intelligence, and relationship-building: the areas where AI falls short and where local context matters.

• Strategic Industry Selection: Target sectors where being local provides genuine advantages or where human creativity and cultural nuance are premium values.

• Regional Network Building: Build connections across ASEAN where Singapore citizenship (aka our passport and being reliable) often provides significant advantages absent in the domestic market.

The Bottom Line

NTU's initiative is positive, but career support must be grounded in economic reality. Students need honest conversations about market competition and strategic guidance on developing uniquely human skills that complement, rather than compete with AI and global talent.

The future belongs to graduates who can blend academic excellence with creativity, cultural intelligence, and authentic human connection: skills our education system traditionally undervalues but our economy increasingly demands.

As educational consultants, we must help families recognize this shift early and make strategic choices accordingly. Success requires more than good grades. It requires becoming irreplaceably human in an increasingly automated world.