Education

Our Ethos

At Temasek Polytechnic, we believe that entrepreneurship is a mindset and discipline that must be embraced by students and staff alike. We subscribe to the study and practice of entrepreneurship both within and beyond the curriculum. Maximum opportunities are created to foster and facilitate multi-disciplinary learning and practice of entrepreneurship across the Polytechnic – regardless of the course of study and field of specialisation.

Key Education Concepts

• Core Subject
• Cross-Disciplinary Subjects / Cluster
• “Learning by Doing” – The Entrepreneurship Cart System
• Entrepreneurship-related Subjects in All Diplomas
• Social Entrepreneurship
• Learning through Competitions

Core Subject - Basics of Entrepreneurship

Every student in the School of Business will have to go through a compulsory subject called “Basics of Entrepreneurship”, in which they will be exposed to the key elements of entrepreneurship.

This subject introduces students to the basic concepts of entrepreneurship, and examines the traits of successful entrepreneurs and the basic elements of generating new business ideas. It serves as a foundation upon which students can embark on continuing further studies in entrepreneurship and participation in Poly-wide business projects and other entrepreneurial activities.

Innovation & Entrepreneurship Cluster / Cross-Disciplinary Subjects

Entrepreneurship Project

Entrepreneurship is the ability to create and build something from practically nothing. “Entrepreneurship Project: Interdisciplinary Approach” is a cross-disciplinary subject that engages students from different disciplines to come together and work on projects that have entrepreneurial perspectives with the aim of creating a product, service or process that is unique and of economic as well as social value.

Innovation Principles & Practice

A second cross-disciplinary subject, Innovation Principles & Practice aims to prepare students for the fast paced changing entrepreneurial environment. Focusing on product innovation, the subject aims to equip students with the process skills for purposeful, systematic innovation through a comprehensive approach.

Basics of eEntrepreneurship

This subject introduces students to the basic concepts of e-entrepreneurship. It examines the wealth of internet applications to create an on-line business. A variety of internet applications and social media platforms will also be presented to the students. The concepts and processes in using e-market testing are implemented in this subject.

Social Entrepreneurship

The subject involves the understanding of various enterprise start-ups in a social environment. It will equip students with an in-depth knowledge of social enterprise work, necessary skills of starting up a business, mobilising available resources, identifying market opportunity and assessing market potentials of a business in a social context.

“Learning by Doing” – The Entrepreneurship Cart System

The aim of the entrepreneurship cart system is to provide a platform for our students to put their entrepreneurial skills to practice and at the same time to encourage “learning by doing”. It operates on a rental basis which allows students to book the cart at $10/day for business activities.

As a Subject in All Diplomas

At Temasek Polytechnic, all diplomas have either specialised entrepreneurship subjects, elective subjects or entrepreneurship-related content embedded in their subjects to train students in Entrepreneurship Process Skills.

Social Entrepreneurship Through SIFE

Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) is a global non-profit organisation which aims to mobilise students from the institutes of higher learning to create economic opportunity for others while discovering their own potential. Temasek Polytechnic has been a supporter of SIFE. Through TP SIFE, we seek to change the mindsets of our youths; to be passionate in helping the less fortunate; and to create a better, more sustainable world through the positive power of business. We hope to accomplish this by coaching and molding them into sincere, self-driven and ethical individuals to become socially responsible business leaders of tomorrow.

Learning through Competitions

Our students are encouraged to participate in all entrepreneurship-related competitions to enable them to learn beyond their normal curriculum. We believe that through preparing for the competitions, students learn how to map out the best strategies to achieve competitive advantage and thus broaden their knowledge base.  Annually, we organise two competitions - the Final5 Entrepreneurship Competition which fosters entrepreneurial thinking and the TP Innovation Competition (PDF:270KB) which encourages creative thinking.  

Global Entrepreneurship Week 2011 (GEW)

From 8-20 Nov 2011, millions of young people around the world join together to to celebrate GEW, an initiative to inspire young people to embrace innovation and creativity. TP has been supporting GEW since its inception and this year, we are organising these events to promote entrepreneurship via different platforms: