Beautiful Marina Bay Sand Skypark...

SINGAPORE: Singapore's largest career and education fair, Career 2007, has opened its doors.

Its organisers expect that by the time it ends on Sunday, more than 400,000 visitors would have made a beeline for it.

More than 20,000 jobs and 50,000 educational placements resort hotel barrage will be available at the four-day exhibition at Suntec Singapore, which has attracted the participation of 600 companies from 20 countries.

Marina Bay Sands career skypark map lion king Resort is an obvious crowd puller at this year's exhibition.

The integrated resort, which will open in 2009, is expected to generate 30,000 jobs by 2015.

Meanwhile, it is looking to fill up its management positions, and many are hoping to make the mark.

"We believe that Marina Bay Sands is going to become the next focus in Singapore. Since it is going to become an industry in Singapore in future, that's why we prefer to choose Marina Sands and I want to give it a try," says NTU graduate Edwin Chen.

Apart from Marina Bay Sands, a number of new exhibitors are also making their debut.

Spring Singapore is offering career opportunities in 10 industries, while the Workforce Development Agency is promising not just jobs, but also training.

"WDA prepares workers for the new economy. At the WDA pavilion ,we have put together 3,000 places for workers who can not only get the right skills but national qualification under our WSQ (Workforce Skills Qualification) system," says Choong Ket Che, Director, Corporate & Marketing Comms, WDA.

"For those workers without formal qualification, they can also use our employability skills system to test their literacy and numeric skills and then get a certificate, which is an alternative to GCE," says Choong.

Opening the exhibition, Minister of State Gan Kim Yong, noting that students do not plan what they intend to do after they graduate, says the Education Ministry will be giving more emphasis to early career planning.

And some seminars have been planned for students, teachers and even parents at the exhibition.

"It is important for us to ensure that our students in schools are aware of the graduate opportunities as they graduate. So therefore it is important for us to provide career as well as career guidance to our students and our career guidance programme in our schools have been ongoing for close to 10 years and we will continue to do so, particularly when our job markets are tightening up," says the Minister of State, Education & Manpower.

To give a leg up to those interested in the media industry, the Singapore Media Academy and the Singapore Manufacturers' Federation's School of Management are coming up with a nine-month diploma course in Mass Communications.

"Singapore Media Academy is providing two modules for this diploma programme. We are providing content creation for print, for radio and for television. And we leverage on our expertise because we have access to professional broadcasters, newscasters and writers and this would enable Singapore to position itself as the media educational hub of the region," says Dr Jackson Yip, Vice President, Singapore Media Academy.

The part-time and full time courses will begin in April. - CNA/yy