Tech Trends for Education: Education trends change in light of technological disruption

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In Singapore, there has been a 20 percent increase in the demand for tech professionals over the last 12 months. This, in turn, has brought about a major shift in the study choices of Singapore's students with most choosing technical and computing courses over more traditional choices. CGTN's Miro Lu brings you this report.

Singapore has been doubling down its efforts on digital technology and the build-up of artificial intelligence.

Taking a cue from their government, schools, parents and students are moving towards computational learning to prepare themselves for future jobs.

MOHAN KANKANHALLI DEAN, SCHOOL OF COMPUTING, NUS "Every sector of the economy is going to be transformed and disrupted by technology. And so there will be a lot of jobs which require having computing skills, and therefore I think students and parents both are responding to this emerging scenario of the future."

One such case is that of an eighth grader. At just 14 years of age, Vayun can already code in six different programming languages, has participated in hackathons, and has built a voice-controlled chatbot.

He wants to pursue a career in Robotics or AI, and he believes that everyone should learn coding even if they don't choose a technical career.

VAYUN MATHUR STUDENT "Learning how to program also prepares your brain and helps you understand how to tackle complex algorithmic problems and even if are not using code to solve that in life there are often situations where you need that kind of problem-solving skills."

Vayun is among thousands of Singapore's students, who are learning how to code in order to improve their tech skills.

Coding Lab is a tuition center that teaches computational thinking to students ranging from preschoolers to teenagers.

MIRO LU SINGAPORE "The clear shift towards computing is not limited to younger students. There has been a tremendous surge in demand at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Take NUS school of computing as an example, if you look at the enrollment figures in the past few years, you will find a steady rise in the number of admissions from 2015 to 2018."

These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. As Dean Mohan Kankanhalli points out, students with diverse backgrounds have shown keen interest in tech courses.

MOHAN KANKANHALLI DEAN, SCHOOL OF COMPUTING, NUS "Even demand for our courses by non-computing majors is increasing, so we have tremendously increased not just places for our undergraduate program but also for minors, for second majors, for double majors."

Singapore has already established itself as a business hub in Asia. With the swift towards technical learning in full swing among its future and existing workforce, the republic is moving closer to achieving its goal of becoming an innovation centre. Miro Lu, CGTN, Singapore.