SINGAPORE – An e-mail sent to Ms Vennica Li’s school showed her a career path that she had thought was out of reach of a polytechnic student.
She was about to graduate from Republic Polytechnic in 2019 with a Diploma in Business Applications when she received that e-mail calling for applicants to a one-year apprenticeship at bank JP Morgan.
Curious about the financial technology that underlies ubiquitous credit card and online payments, she applied and was accepted.
“All these (payments) are very relevant to life, but, at the same time, it’s not something that everyone will know – it is only when you are inside the industry... that you can have access to knowing more about it,” said Ms Li, now 26 and an application support associate at JP Morgan.
Her polytechnic education prepared her well for the apprenticeship, given the strong foundation in coding it imparted, she noted.
As an apprentice, Ms Li spent six months with the bank’s global technology infrastructure team, and another six with the strategy and business services team.
More apprenticeships like hers in the financial sector will be offered as part of a three-year Polytechnic Talent for Finance Scheme that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) launched on Monday to help it attract more polytechnic graduates and students.
Banks and insurers, among other financial institutions, can tap the Polytechnic Talent for Finance Scheme from Monday to defray the cost of offering internships, apprenticeships and academic sponsorships to polytechnic graduates and students.
The scheme is financed by MAS’ Financial Sector Development Fund and administered by the Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF).
Upon completing her apprenticeship in 2020, Ms Li was offered a permanent job as an application support analyst in another team looking after the bank’s payment services, before being promoted to associate 2½ years later in February 2023.
Apprentices at JP Morgan may be offered a permanent role in the team where they apprenticed, or apply to other teams with the apprenticeship experience taken into account.
An apprenticeship can still complement a subsequent degree, noted Ms Li, who embarked on a sponsored part-time degree course in software engineering at the National University of Singapore in 2021.
Work experience helped her narrow down what she wanted to explore more deeply in a degree course, she said.
“I really think that exposure to the industry will help us to get out of thinking about a degree as just a piece of paper – it’s actually quite helpful.”
