The New Pathways -- Moderate A Panel Discussion

At last, I am on my last few hurdles to complete my Leadership Development path, Level 5 - Moderate A Panel Discussion!

The setting was at the recently concluded Youth Leadership Program held at ITE College East from 12 October to 2 November 2017. The date was on 2 November 2017 during the Graduation Showcase. The panel discussion took a good 45 minutes... longer than planned due to the enthusiastic participation of the audience.


This was the last and final session for our Youth Leadership Program. Besides the usual impromptu speeches, prepared speeches and evaluations, we wanted to showcase how much the ITE College East students had learned and how far they had come.

The panel had one "expert" conference speaker and three pre-selected student panelists to share their thoughts. Yours truly was the moderator. The discussion topic for the panelists was "Degree or Skills - Which is more important?"

A great topic given that ITE College East students were studying vocational skills. President Richard Ong DTM delivered his conference paper followed by panel discussion. It was totally engaging as we had audience participation including insightful input from Teacher-advisor Grace Angel.

We weighted in on both aspects. It was generally felt that skills are very important but degrees help to differentiate equally qualified candidates for higher management positions. With hands-on skills, one would never go hungry as one could potentially use one's hands to make something. In fact, in many developed countries, there are too many graduates and not enough skilled workers. As a result, there are many unemployed graduates; perhaps due to unrealistic expectations.

P.S. On hindsight we should have shown this video during our Panel Discussion: "Degree or Skills - Which is more important?" 😂


Chew Ban Seng DTM
Past District Governor

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