December 8, 2023

8^th December marks the anniversary of the founding of the National University of Singapore’s College of Humanities and Sciences (CHS). The CHS introduced a new undergraduate curriculum structure that places an emphasis on drawing from different intellectual approaches and tools across disciplines from the humanities, social sciences, and the sciences. The new curriculum structure reduces a student’s major requirements and lowers the required minimum workload for a student pursuing second majors and minors. Under the revised curriculum structure, the inaugural batch of CHS undergraduates can now read modules across the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) and the Faculty of Sciences (FoS) more easily. The change in curriculum structure aims to break down traditional disciplinary silos, encourage interdisciplinary thinking, and incentivize undergraduates to pursue a broad-based curriculum.

In ‘Breadth of University Curriculum and Labor Market Outcomes’ (Labour Economics, 2020), Senior Lecturer Kelvin Seah, Professor Jessica Pan (both from NUS Economics), and Assistant Professor Tan Poh Lin (Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy), investigate the relationship between a broad-based university curriculum structure and subsequent effects on labor market outcomes. The researchers point out that a broad-based university education has commonly been encouraged by senior university administrators and cited as a crucial way to promote a vibrant society. Despite being a common feature in the discourse on Singapore’s higher education landscape, there is a lack of research on the relationship between the breadth of university curriculum and labor market outcomes.

As pointed out by the research team, NUS previously revised its curriculum structure in 2007, reducing the number of modular credits undergraduates were required to read to fulfil the university breadth requirement. Subsequently, the different faculties had to decide how to allocate the additional eight modular credits (MCs) that resulted from the university-level policy change. In response, FASS allocated the additional MCs to its major requirements, compelling undergraduates to read more modules from their major discipline. Other faculties allocated the additional MCs to unrestricted elective space, encouraging students to read any modules they were interested in. The researchers took advantage of this policy change to compare the impact of curriculum breadth on the students’ labor market outcomes.

Employing a multivariate analysis, the team investigated the association between the breadth of university curriculum and labor market outcomes for cohorts between 2003 and 2010 from five different faculties – Arts and Social Sciences, Engineering, Science, Business, and Computing. The labor market outcomes that were examined are labor market earnings, the full-time permanent employment rate, and the unemployment rate. All the outcomes were measured six months after graduation. The analysis also controlled for the socio-economic characteristics of the students and the academic profile of the graduates before university.

The analysis showed that curriculum breadth was associated with significantly lower entry wages. These effects disappeared when accounting for university academic performance. The findings suggest that employers place weight on academic performance but accord little to no consideration to course diversity of graduates. However, the team also notes that while a more specialized course portfolio could ease initial entry into the labor market, these advantages are reduced over time if rapid changes in technology render these specialized skills obsolete over an individual’s career life cycle. Although the findings of the study suggest that curriculum breadth does not matter for labor market outcomes such as employment and salary six months after graduation, the authors note that the relationship between the breadth of university curriculum on long-term labor market advantages over an individual’s career life cycle has yet to be investigated.

Read the article here.