Private school grads fall further behind NUS, NTU, SMU grads: Survey

Private school graduates continue to fall behind their public university counterparts, even as more of them are working part-time, a survey has found.

Less than half of them - 47.4 per cent - found full-time permanent work six months after finishing their studies, compared with 78.4 per cent for those from three publicly funded universities - the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Singapore Management University (SMU).

They also fared worse than post-national service polytechnic graduates, who recorded a 64 per cent full-time employment rate.

The survey, released yesterday by the Committee for Private Education, found that private school fresh graduates had median gross starting salaries of $2,650 a month, below the $3,400 for graduates of NUS, NTU and SMU. Post-NS polytechnic graduates took home $2,480 a month.

Some 37 per cent of 10,171 private school students who graduated from full-time external degree programmes between May 2016 and April last year responded to the survey conducted from November last year to February. Of the respondents, 2,800 were fresh graduates.

Overall, 79 per cent of fresh private school graduates were employed - full-time, part-time, or on a temporary or freelance basis within six months of finishing their studies - compared with 88.9 per cent for public university graduates.

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These results come after the first survey of private school graduates by the committee came out in November last year. It found that six in 10 of the graduates were hired full-time six months after completing their studies.

Their median starting pay was $2,550 a month.