To keep up with the times, universities in Singapore must do more than produce fresh school-leavers for the job market. The education system must pay attention to those who have already graduated and retrain about half a million adult learners each year, said Education Minister Chan Chun Sing on Thursday (Feb 10) as he laid out his vision for the role of universities in meeting the needs of the future. Mr Chan was speaking at The Straits Times Education Forum 2022 on "The evolving role of universities", held in partnership with SMU. The session, which was held at the SMU Yong Pung How School of Law, also featured SMU President Professor Lily Kong and Mr Andreas Schleicher, who is the Director for Education and Skills, and Special Adviser on education policy to the secretary-general at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Acknowledging the changing role of universities, Prof Kong said, "Universities are used to working with young people... but as we begin to work with adult learners, one of the things that we realised is that the traditional approach to (teaching) theory and foundation, then later on (learning) how to apply it, is just not going to work." Hence, SMU has been exploring different teaching methods like co-creating and co-delivering content and skills with industry partners, she added.