MENDAKI Education Symposium 2021

The MENDAKI Education Symposium 2021, jointly organised by NIE and Yayasan MENDAKI, was held on 30 June 2021. Themed “Redefining Success: Preparing our youth and workforce for the future”, the symposium sought to discover how youths and the workforce can be better prepared with the skills and qualities needed to thrive in the future economy. The symposium was graced by Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Heng Swee Keat as the Guest of Honour, and consisted of three webinars in succession.

In the first webinar, the panelists were DPM Heng, Mr Zaqy Mohamad, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Manpower and Deputy Chairman of Yayasan MENDAKI and Prof Christine Goh, NIE Director, with Ms Faridah Saad, President of MENDAKI Club and Deputy Director (AgriTech), Enterprise Singapore as the moderator. The topic of discussion was “Beyond the degree: Are Singaporeans ready to redefine success?”, advocating for society to be open to pursue different pathways at different life stages. The new work group collaboration between Yayasan MENDAKI and the Office of Education Research (OER), NIE, was also announced in this session by Mr Zaqy. For more details on the work group, please click here.

The next session touched on skills that are transferable and relevant in growth sectors. Titled “Degrees of relevance: What skills prepare you for lifelong success?”, the session saw Dr Michael Tan, OER Research Scientist, Ms Chelvin Loh, Director, Jobs-Skills Insights Division, SkillsFuture Singapore, Mr Fahrur Razi Yusoff, Youth Mentor, Yayasan MENDAKI as speakers, and was moderated by Mr Johann Johari, Assistant Director of the Planning Department at Yayasan MENDAKI.

The symposium wrapped up with the third webinar on “Degrees of success: How resilient will the COVID generation be?”, highlighting the importance of resilience as a pre-requisite trait amongst youths and workers in pursuit of a life of success. Dr Imelda Caleon, OER Asst Dean (Partnerships) and Senior Research Scientist at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, NIE, Mr Khairul Rusydi, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Reactor School, and Mr Razali Abdul Hamed, Principal at Junyan Secondary School, spoke at the session which was moderated by Mr Faisal Aman, Team Lead, Research and Design Department at Yayasan MENDAKI.

In total, the MENDAKI Education Symposium attracted over 600 attendees online.