It has been a year since the World Health Organisation had declared Covid-19 as a pandemic. Many workers have been affected by the crisis; the lower income, self-employed and freelancers are more vulnerable as they may not have much savings to fall back on, and have less job and income security in the gig economy.
The job crisis created by Covid-19 has put a focus on finding opportunities to upskill or reskill even after formally completing studies. Many see the urgent need to reskill or upskill to stay competitive in a tight job market and in the post-pandemic world. The pandemic has reaffirmed the importance of adaptability and continual learning to ensure people are ready to take on changing job demands and seize opportunities.
At SUSS, we extend a helping hand to companies and organisations by continuing to work closely with them through its support of the SkillsFuture movement, Professional Conversion Programme, Work-Study Programme, amongst other offerings. SUSS assists its partners to develop a broad but relevant range of skills in their human capital, groom talents that are in demand by the market, enable individuals to upgrade and upskill at different stages of their lives and nurture everyone to be a lifelong learner.
Covid-19 has also changed the structure of teaching and learning. Online learning and online engagements are modes that have suddenly become pervasive and is the new normal. Like for many other universities worldwide, the current pandemic has presented SUSS with challenges. We've had to close our campus, conduct lessons all online, and even end-of-course assessments. Understandably, many of our learners felt lost and frustrated, even though online learning at SUSS is not new, but, life must go on and they have adapted.
And despite, or perhaps because of, all the challenges posed by Covid-19, we have stayed focus on our vision to be the leading university for social good. With that in mind, we launched our Centre of Excellence for Social Good which aims to provide learning as a platform for different communities to advance social good. Find out more about this centre which serves as a key node for learning, collaboration and solutioning among the non-profit, public and private sectors to positively transform our communities, amongst our other initiatives, in this issue.
Martin Yuoon
Director, External Relations
Singapore University of Social Sciences