SPEECH BY MR ONG YE KUNG, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND COORDINATING MINISTER FOR SOCIAL POLICIES, AT THE NUS NURSING 20TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

Professor Yeoh Khay Guan, Chief Executive, NUHS

Professor Chong Yap Seng, Dean, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS

Professor Liaw Sok Ying, Head, Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, NUS

Professor John Wong, Executive Director, Centre for Population Health, NUS

Dr Catherine Koh, Group Chief Nurse, NUHS

Nurses, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen

1. It is my great pleasure to join you today to have a double celebration — the 20th anniversary of the NUS Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies (NUS Nursing) as well as Nurses' Day. Happy Nurses’ Day to all of you.

2. NUS Nursing has come a long way. You started in 2005 with 49 students in your inaugural programme. Today, you have 1,120 enrolled students, 2,935 graduates and achieved a top eight place in the 2025 QS World University Rankings for nursing. Congratulations!

3. I've been an education minister for a number of years. Some of you know my views about ranking. Ranking is important to give us a very good reference, but always have a very steady emotion when it comes to ranking. When you have a very good ranking - celebrate, feel encouraged. You deserve it. But do not be too happy, because next year there's another ranking, and it goes up and down. So if it goes down, don't feel discouraged. Be steady. Be encouraged that this is a sign that we can do better. Because that's what ranking means. It makes your emotions go like a roller coaster. Just like we tell our students when they do well in exams, very good, encourage them. Don't do well, don't feel discouraged. Learn from it. So keep your emotions steady. Focus on the work.

4. My second advice is this, and it's a very odd thing in the academic circles. I always say this as a Minister for Education, which is ranking is largely driven by research, which you are aware. But actually we are renowned for our education. Today, you are doing well. You are held in such a high regard in the healthcare system because of the quality of your education, which is not taken into account during the ranking. If it does, you would probably rank higher. We focus on research because it is important to have a curious institution to have high rankings and give you validation that you are doing good work. But it takes passion, discipline and a sense of mission to keep the standard of your education high. Because no ranking is going to recognise that. We must recognise it ourselves.

Nursing Training in Singapore

5. Let me first recount the history of nursing training in Singapore, where NUS is a major part of this history.

6. When Singapore was a British Colony, nursing training was informal, with nurses learning on the job, often in hospitals or religious institutions. There was no formal system for registering or regulating nurses either.

7. In 1926, the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) established a Preliminary Training School, marking an early step towards formal training. The first School of Nursing was established by MOH in 1956. It offered a three-year programme for locally trained nurses. From there, we started to recognise nursing as a profession with standardised training.

8. 1992 marked a significant milestone, as Nanyang Polytechnic took over nursing education, offering a Diploma in Nursing course, in collaboration with the University of Sydney. In 2005, Ngee Ann Polytechnic also started its Diploma in Nursing. Then, we have two polytechnics offering nursing courses. This is in view of the growing need for nurses in Singapore. At the time, nursing was deemed as a diploma-level programme.

9. As healthcare and patient expectations continued to evolve, we as a nation realised the need to attract more individuals to the profession and to prepare nurses with higher level skills in leadership, research, analysis teaching, and clinical practices. As a result, nursing training was elevated to the university level, leading to degrees. With higher qualifications, career progression for nurses was also enhanced.

10. Hence, in August 2006, NUS introduced the Bachelor of Science (Nursing) programme, the first three-year full-time undergraduate programme in nursing offered by a local university. The new school received significant help from the late Dr Lee Seng Gee, the son of the late philanthropist, Dr Lee Kong Chian and Alice Lee. Through the Lee Foundation, a significant donation was made to support the establishment of NUS Nursing, and this school was therefore named in honour of Dr Lee Seng Gee’s mother, Madam Alice Lee. Today, we continue to receive strong donors, donation and support from other foundations, such as the Tan Ean Kiam Foundation. Thank you very much for your support.

11. To provide further degree level training pathways for nurses, in 2011, the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) partnered with the University of Manchester to offer a two-year post-registration honours bachelor’s degree in nursing. This became a popular avenue for nursing Diploma holders to advance their qualifications with a local Institute of Higher Learning (IHL). The programme welcomed its first cohort of 70 students in September 2011. In 2016, SIT had a new partner — the University of Glasgow. Because of its polytechnic roots, SIT’s nursing programmes emphasised strongly on industry attachment and overseas immersion. So by the time SIT came into the picture, following NUS’ footsteps, I think degree-level nursing training became mainstream and the norm.

12. At the same time, the development of Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs) was ongoing. As Singapore’s population ages and chronic diseases become more common, more patients require ongoing, specialised care. We cannot rely on doctors alone. APNs therefore emerge as a route of advancement within the nursing profession, a group with specialised skills to provide advanced clinical care and contribute to policy and to education.

13. To train nurses to become APNs, the Master of Nursing, an 18-month full-time programme was jointly established by MOH and NUS in 2003, with the focus of advanced clinical skills training. As at end of last year, we have 403 certified APNs on the register.

14. Later this month, NUS will be launching the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) programme. This DNP is two-year, part-time and empowers nurses to lead system-wide improvements, influence health policies, enhance care delivery while continuing your clinical work.

New Training Strategy for Nurses’ Upgrading

15. As the story of nursing training continues to evolve, and it will - 20 years is too short. I hope and I’m confident NUS Nursing will continue to be its key protagonist.

16. The requirements of nurses are still changing, and changing even more rapidly now, because we have an ageing population, which is giving rise to a different patient mix. As patients get older, they increasingly require less episodic care, but more coordinated and consolidated care to better manage multiple and complex conditions.

17. At the Nurses' Merit Award ceremony earlier this year, I emphasised the need for a robust training strategy to support healthcare workforce transformation. In other words, we need a SkillsFuture strategy for healthcare, and for nursing. We will need to partner IHLs to deliver this strategy. I've been in conversations with the IHLs. We are getting very encouraging signals from IHLs who are prepared on this. We are getting very strong indications of partnerships. I think it has to do with the fact we have developed this whole training pathway together with the IHLs, and I look forward to working closely with them.

18. As I have recounted, the history of nursing training has been marked by introduction of formal training leading to formal qualifications, such as NITEC, diploma, degree, master’s and now PhDs, that enhanced professionalism and raised standards of practice. That was the pathway we have taken over the last few decades. However, the future of nursing training is about flexible, modular, competency-based, stackable training that equip the workforce to quickly respond to the changing needs and adapt to a different healthcare landscape, while still maintaining high standards. What comes around, goes around. In the past, it was informal, very practical training in the hospital. Then we standardised it, formalised it and now, as things get more complicated, we are going back to the roots – formal training, but coupled with more informal, stackable, modular training, back to the industry, back in the hospitals. This will give us the strength for the whole system.

19. The training system has already started to adapt to this new reality.

20. We launched the ITE Work-Study Diploma in Nursing last year for in-service Enrolled Nurses (ENs) to be upgraded to Registered Nurses. I think this kind of work-study programme will suit the ENs a lot more. NUS also introduced two postgraduate programmes — the Graduate Certificate in Integrated Health and the Graduate Certificate in Critical Care Nursing. Micro-credentials are the way to go for in-service training. Both are delivered in a work-study format. NUS will be offering the Graduate Certificate in Infection Prevention & Control later this month and these short programmes can be stacked to a master’s qualification.

21. We seek the IHLs’ support, to help us deepen capabilities, transform the healthcare workforce, transform the healthcare system.

Closing

22. In closing, to the faculty, students, alumni, partners of NUS Nursing, congratulations on the two decades of achievement, and thank you for raising the standards bar for nursing training in Singapore all these years. May you continue to honour your legacy and boldly shape the future of nursing in Singapore. Happy 20th Anniversary to NUS Nursing and Happy Nurses’ Day to all nurses.