SINGAPORE: Polytechnic graduates last year saw better employment prospects and higher salaries compared to students in the 2017 cohort, according to the Graduate Employment Survey released on Tuesday (Jan 15). 

About 89.5 per cent of the graduates found full-time, part-time temporary and freelance jobs within six months of graduation. This is 2.2 percentage points higher than in 2017.

The survey – jointly conducted by Nanyang Polytechnic, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Republic Polytechnic, Singapore Polytechnic and Temasek Polytechnic – also found that for those in full-time permanent employment, the overall median gross monthly salary went up from S$2,235 in 2017 to S$2,350 in 2018.

As with the previous year, students who graduated from health sciences earned the most compared to their peers from other courses. 

The numbers show that polytechnic graduates continue to be sought after by employers, said the polytechnics in a media release. 

It added that students are becoming more open to voluntary part-time/temporary and freelance employment. 

“This is a reflection of rising desire to further their studies, and also evolving employment preferences among our polytechnic graduates,” said a spokesman of the 2018 survey committee.

“Based on past trends, the majority of those initially in part-time/temporary employment transited to full-time permanent jobs after some time. Data also shows that our graduates enjoy good wage growth even as overall employment rates remain high.”

SINGAPORE: Registration for Ministry of Education (MOE) Kindergartens or MK is set to become an online exercise, the ministry announced in a press release on Tuesday (Jan 15).

This will be implemented for the upcoming 2019 MK Registration Exercise and will replace the on-site physical registration process.

Parents will be able to register their child through the MK website, instead of having to go down to the kindergarten of their choice and complete registration forms and submit supporting documents, the ministry added.

“This provides greater convenience and accessibility for parents as they no longer need to be physically present in the MK of choice,” MOE said.

The online registration will open from Feb 8 at 9am to Feb 11 at 4pm. The outcome will be released by Apr 10, MOE said.

There are 29 MKs participating in this year’s registration exercise for K1 admission in 2020. Registration is open to Singapore citizen and Permanent Resident (PR) children born between Jan 2, 2015 and Jan 1, 2016.

READ: 7 new MOE kindergartens to open in 2021

CHANGES TO ADMISSIONS FRAMEWORK

MOE also said the sibling priority criteria has been expanded to include siblings studying in the primary school where the kindergarten is located.

“With the expansion of MKs into more primary schools, and in recognition of the convenience for parents if their children were to study at the same school premises, we will extend the current eligibility criteria for sibling priority for MK admission to children who have an older sibling in the entire age range from K1 to P6 of the MK/primary school,” MOE said.

In order to ensure that MKs continue to remain accessible to children from lower-income households, MOE said it will swap the Priority Orders (PO) for registration.

With the change, the POs will be as follows:

MOE Kindergartens will be holding open houses on Jan 26 and Feb 9. 

SINGAPORE: SingPost on Monday (Jan 14) apologised to customers for its “service deterioration” in recent weeks, citing a “tremendously busy” November-December period as the reason for poor service quality.

“It would be fair to state that we have failed to live up to expectations in recent times,” said the postal delivery service on its website and in a Facebook post. 

In explaining the background to the service deterioration, SingPost said it delivered an average of 3 million mail items a day, but an increase in package volumes for last year’s November-December period put additional pressure on its services.

“The November-December peak season was a tremendously busy period for our staff members,” said SingPost. 

“Due to the increased package volumes – which were beyond forecasts and expectations – our postmen have had to make an average of an additional 20 doorstep deliveries daily.

“All postmen and delivery staff are also working beyond their usual hours to help process and support these volumes.”

It added that it hired extra resources, recalled personnel and “activated teams” from the corporate office on Saturdays to meet demand, but service quality “still suffered as a result”.

The postal service provider’s apology comes after complaints of subpar delivery service on social media.

Netizen Andy Lau said in a Facebook post last month that he had to chase after a delivery man when the man left after knocking at his door for a “few seconds”.

“Delivery guy knocked for a few seconds, ran off and left the note before I can answer the door,” said Lau. “I sprinted down and camped at his bike until he appeared. Confronted him about it and he couldn’t put his words together properly on how he waited for more than 20 minutes.”

Meanwhile, a SingPost postman was fired last February after he was found to have thrown away returned letters and direct mail at a condominium.

In a video of the incident taken by a member of the public who confronted the man, the postman can be heard admitting to throwing the mail away. He also complained that he was tired and treated unfairly.

READ: SingPost fires postman who threw away mail

In its post on Monday, SingPost said that there would “inevitably” be employees who “may not act in the best interests of the company”.

“We have experienced service failures due to the individual actions of a few employees,” it said. “We are aware that this not only reflects badly on our organisation but undermines the hard work, commitment and dedication that the majority of our postal staff are displaying every single day.”

“Such behaviour will not be tolerated.”

The company added that while its post aimed to provide some background on the challenges it faces, it said that these “are not excuses for the issues that have been raised.”

“We value the integrity and trust we have built as an organisation over 160 years and are now focused on rebuilding that trust.”

“AM I THE POSTMAN OF MY BLOCK?”

Following SingPost’s apology post on Monday, its Facebook page has been inundated with complaints of poor service from other disgruntled netizens.

“Recently I found a stack of letters on top of the letter box,” wrote Facebook user Terrence Wang in a comment. “It includes letters addressed to me and a lot of my neighbours. Your useless postman just (left) that whole stack of letters on top of the letter box.

“I got to go door-to-door to deliver the letters to my neighbours. Am I the postman of my block?”

In another comment, Karen Law said: “The delivery man left my packages that are worth more than USD$100 at the door step and forged the recipient’s signature. That is totally unacceptable. When I emailed Singpost, I was given a generic reply. What’s the point of providing feedback when you won’t even acknowledge the issue and answer my questions?”

Another Facebook user Jonathan Lau complained about an incident that happened in July last year, during which he claimed that CCTV footage showed a SingPost delivery man dropping off a failed delivery notice at his door without ringing the doorbell.

Said Lau: “I wrote to say my CCTV footage showed your driver dropping a failed delivery notice without ringing the bell. That he didn’t even take my parcel from his bike. That I had received at least 12 failed notifications that past week when someone was always home.

“Your response was not of an acknowledgement of a lapse but rather, you explained that the operating procedures state that he would return to his bike to retrieve my parcel if I had come to the door,” he added.

“You didn’t even bother explaining why he didn’t attempt the deliver by at least ringing the bell.”

SingPost’s Facebook post in full:

IT’S looking increasingly likely that Vietnam will be chosen to host the second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the coming months.

US and North Korean officials have reportedly met several times in Hanoi, in northern Vietnam, to arrange details, and even Trump himself has expressed a preference for the Southeast Asian country.

Vietnam has shown its eagerness to host the political circus, reportedly telling high ranking South Korea officials in December that it was interested, and also informing North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yongho of their desire to host during his official visit in late November.

But the recognition of such a global event doesn’t come for free and any summit is guaranteed to cost a pretty penny; something Singapore, the last host, found out the hard way.

US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un walk together during the US-North Korea summit on June 12, 2018. Source: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

The costs of diplomacy

The biggest expenditure Vietnam can expect to bear is on security.

Unlike other political events, the high-profile nature of the occasion and the two people in question raises the bill far above other diplomatic meetings.

According to Observer, Singapore spent approximately US$6 million on security alone. The visible bodyguards and police presence were only the tip of the iceberg.

Speaking after the event, Singapore’s prime minister Lee Hsien Loong told reporters the security effort involved “all-round protection and in-depth protection – air, sea and land – against attack and against mishap.”

The media circus

Where Trump and Kim go, the media will follow. The scene in Singapore was an absolute media circus. While there is likely to be slightly fewer media attendees,  given the less historic nature of their second meeting, there will still be hordes – and these all need to be accommodated.

It’s a packed and buzzing media centre already!! 2500 journalist covering the Trump-Kim Singapore summit. The biggest media contingent ever in Singapore. #TrumpKimsummit @IndiaToday @connected2india @aajtak pic.twitter.com/jjxToa0lwv

— PunamSharrma (@punams_7) June 10, 2018

Singapore reportedly spent US$3.5 million setting up the media centre at the Formula One track to provide news outlets from across the globe the resources to do their jobs.

Over 2,500 journalists, camera operators, TV hosts descended on they small city-state for the summit. And they all need feeding.

Caterers were working around the clock to keep everyone fed, with a warehouse handed over to just food.

Food heaven spotted at the #TrumpKimSummit pic.twitter.com/77KjQ48ROR

— Aurindom Mukherjee (@AurindomM) June 10, 2018

Accommodation for the staff accompanying Kim was also paid for by Singapore as the US refused to foot the bill for North Korean officials.

Just prior to the June 12 meeting, Singapore’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan announced the Singapore government would be paying for the North Korean contingent’s hotel bill as it was “hospitality that we would have offered them.”

Wider effects

All of that is just the direct costs of hosting such an event, the knock-on effect on business is no minor cost.

Whole areas of Hanoi near the meeting venue will have to be cordoned off, resulting in a loss of business for those in that area.

Several businesses will be forced to close for the duration as they are in no-go zones.

Roads will be closed if either Trump or Kim decide to travel, causing great inconvenience for residents and backed up traffic.

It all adds up.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is seen returning to North Korea after the summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, in this picture released on June 13, 2018 by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency. Source: KCNA via Reuters

The tally

Singapore’s bill for direct costs ended up coming in at US$12 million, slightly less than the anticipated US$14 million.

This was easily absorbed by the third richest country in the world. At the time, Prime Minister Lee said it was a cost the country was “willing to pay,” but the Singaporean people were slightly less gracious.

Singapore is also in the running to host this time around – although less likely than Hanoi at this point – and people are already voicing their displeasure at the prospect.

Singaporean Zai Tandel said online they would rather spend the money on poor Singaporeans than deploying security for Trump and Kim.

One person commented: “If they themselves pay for it including our security bills during those few days. Otherwise, go elsewhere please.”

Another simply said, “Please don’t come back….. don’t waste our taxpayers money.”

If this is how people feel in one of the richest countries in the world, how are people in Vietnam – with a GDP per capita almost 1/25^th that of Singapore – going to feel about the extra costs?

SINGAPORE: A Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) team has found a way to turn used coffee grounds into a flame retardant that could potentially be used to improve fire safety in homes and offices.

By treating coffee waste and mixing it with epoxy resin – a material commonly found in floorings and walls of homes – Dr Henry Leung and his team of three final-year students were able to leverage the slow-burning properties of coffee to create a material that could withstand a fire by as much as two times that of regular epoxy resin.

Regular epoxy is chemical resistant and highly durable – but despite its many advantages, it has poor resistance to fire and melts quickly, Dr Leung pointed out.

With coffee-epoxy resin, it would take a much longer time for the flames to spread, potentially improving fire safety in households and workplaces significantly, he said.

He and his team demonstrated the properties of their new coffee-epoxy material to journalists on Monday (Jan 14).

“After we did the first burning test with the coffee-epoxy resin and the results came out, I took a video and watched it many times, but I still couldn’t believe that the fire was put out,” Dr Leung quipped.

The new material has also attained an “HB” grading, which indicates slow burning on a horizontal specimen, based on initial findings by a third-party testing laboratory.

Moving forward, the team is looking to further improve the material’s level of fire retardation, attain ISO certification and apply for international patenting, Dr Leung said.

“There are still a lot of ways that we can improve the current product – for example, by using nanotechnology on the coffee powder, which can create a more uniform density and advance the performance of the fire retardant.”

Dr Leung added that apart from its fire-resistant qualities, the coffee-epoxy resin has the potential to become a total solution for reducing coffee waste.

Currently, grounding coffee waste into compost requires large storage space. The incineration of compost is also a space- and energy-consuming process.

Himself a coffee drinker, Dr Leung and his students are no strangers to turning coffee waste into sustainable products.

In 2017, the team also successfully created a biodegradable plastic from coffee waste.