No to retirement, yes to higher education: Why some seniors are going back to school

SINGAPORE – When Adrian Lau, 69, goes for job interviews, prospective employers often comment that he is overqualified. He has six diplomas and a bachelor’s degree.

His most recent qualification, conferred when he graduated from Republic Polytechnic in May, is a specialist diploma in environmental and corporate sustainability, which he took part-time.

Having worked as a health and safety manager in various industries like oil and gas, shipping, construction and manufacturing, he wanted to gain a better understanding of sustainability, such as sustainability reporting and calculating carbon emissions.

At the end of 2025, he was retrenched from the multinational corporation he worked at, as a health, safety, environment and quality adviser for the Asia-Pacific region. He is now looking for another job.

He hopes that would-be employers will consider performance-based matrices, rather than his age, which is the first thing hirers ask him about. Or his many qualifications.

But that will not deter him from further studies.

“Not all companies will invest in training you, so you have to invest in yourself. If you say you have had enough, you may not have motivation to carry on and to make efforts in your daily life,” he says. “Learning keeps you going. It oils your mind and you articulate your thoughts better.”

‘I love to study’

Some Singaporean seniors who are hitting 70 and beyond are finding that traditional retirement is a concept that does not apply to them yet.

In embracing lifelong learning, and submitting to the academic rigour of acquiring diplomas or degrees, they say their quest for greater knowledge is not a chore but a joy.

Apart from burnishing their CV and sharpening their job skills beyond the current official retirement age of 64, they find gaining academic credentials rewarding for myriad reasons, some of which hark back to childhood.

This was the case for Lau, who signed on as an army regular as a young bachelor from a humble background in the 1970s.

He had a vocational, grade 2 National Trade Certificate and was grateful for a stable income that he gave to his mother, keeping only $50 a month for himself. He was the sixth of 10 children, and his dad was a fitter and his mother, a homemaker.

Lau recalls a sense of falling behind his peers from around age six. He felt “lost” in Primary 1 as he did not know the alphabet unlike the other kids; his parents could not afford to send him to kindergarten. As he grew older, he wondered why other schoolchildren wrote essays so much faster than he did.

“When I was in the army, one of my aspirations was that, by hook or by crook, I needed to get a degree, which I did in my 60s,” says Lau, who is married with two sons.

He began amassing diplomas from the 1990s, in courses such as industrial relations, computer studies and industrial engineering.

In 2016, after two years of night classes, he earned his degree in environmental and occupational health and safety, at the age of 60, from the University of Newcastle, Australia, in collaboration with PSB Academy.

“I feel that I have to keep learning,” he says. “I love to study. It keeps my mind agile.”

Highly educated seniors want more

Some representatives from institutions of higher learning have seen a surge in applications from seniors.

At Republic Polytechnic, the number of senior learners aged 60 and above taking short courses or full diploma courses has increased from about 5.5 per cent of the student population in 2022 to around 11.3 per cent in 2025.

Leslie Sim, acting director of the polytechnic’s Academy for Continuing Education (ACE), says the growth appears to be driven by the seniors’ interest in topics such as “active ageing, health upkeep, life transition planning, emerging technologies and practical digital upskilling”.

At Temasek Polytechnic, Kwan Kian Hoong, director of Temasek SkillsFuture Academy, says: “Today’s retirees are redefining what lifelong learning means. We’ve observed an average, year-on-year increase of 50 per cent in senior applicants since 2023.

“These seniors are returning to education to pursue structured programmes such as diplomas and specialist diplomas. Many of them are doing it out of curiosity, intentionally, and with a genuine desire to keep learning.”

He adds that there is sustained interest in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics and gerontology, which “reflects a desire among seniors to stay relevant in a digital society, while also opening up opportunities to contribute through second careers, volunteerism or personal pursuits”.

The academy has also observed that some highly educated seniors are seeking further academic qualifications.

Its figures show that over 40 per cent of its senior learners already have at least a bachelor’s degree. While less than 10 per cent are aged 70 and older, 22.5 per cent of these senior learners hold a master’s or doctorate degree.

From 2021 till April 2026, Temasek SkillsFuture Academy received more than 500 applications for part-time diplomas and specialist diplomas from seniors aged 60 and older.

Universities here, in contrast, are seeing fewer senior applicants.

At Nanyang Technological University, over the past 10 years, the number of learners aged 60 and above pursuing post-graduate degree courses has fluctuated, “although it is always no more than just a handful”, says Boh Wai Fong, vice-president (lifelong learning and alumni engagement) at NTU, who is also a professor.

At National University of Singapore (NUS), nearly 30 learners aged 60 and above enrolled in post-graduate programmes between 2020 and 2026, according to a spokesperson.

Tech pioneer learnt more about AI

One of them is Chong Yoke Sin, 69, who recently completed her Master of Science in Precision Health and Medicine course at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.

With a starry resume, Chong got her PhD in organic chemistry at NUS in the 1980s and completed the advanced management programme at Harvard Business School in the 1990s. A technology and healthcare veteran, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Singapore Computer Society in recent years.

Before she stopped working as a managing partner at iGlobe Partners, a venture capital firm, in 2024, she held positions such as chief of enterprise business at StarHub, growing its AI and cybersecurity presence.

She was also the founding chief executive of Integrated Health Information Systems (IHiS), a subsidiary of Ministry of Health Holdings, which integrated IT systems for Singapore’s public healthcare sector.

Chong keeps busy these days as a director on several boards, including at Wilmar International, Great Eastern Holdings, Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and Mount Alvernia Hospital.

She says: “The reason for taking this master’s degree was to equip myself with the skills to understand this field of precision medicine better.

“At this stage of my life, when my role is more about giving advice and mentoring others, updating my skills in life sciences and IT – now AI – gives me the capability to perform my board and advisory roles better.”

She says the post-graduate degree helped her appreciate how AI can be used to solve healthcare and medical science problems in a way that had not been possible before. Another dividend: “Doing the course with my much younger classmates made me feel young again.”

Self-driven learning

Lifelong learning has been a societal push in Singapore’s ageing society in recent years. But experts suggest that the drive for further education is intrinsic in many seniors.

Tey Beng Huan, an industrial-organisational psychologist at the Centre for Applied Behavioural Sciences at Temasek Polytechnic, says: “Certificates and diplomas function as tangible social assets that affirm competence and identity. This helps explain why some older adults keep accumulating them, as each credential reinforces self-worth at a life stage otherwise associated with decline or withdrawal.”

Citing studies, he notes that “the bulk of evidence points towards internal motivation as the primary driver”.

For example, a 2021 study by Duke-NUS Medical School’s Centre for Ageing Research and Education (CARE) found that older Singaporeans were motivated to participate in lifelong learning for personal development and social engagement.

Substantial government subsidies and credits towards lifelong learning also help, along with the launch of the SkillsFuture movement in 2015 and the National Silver Academy in 2016.

While such factors play a meaningful role, for Singaporeans in their 60s and older, who were well into adulthood when these programmes were introduced, “the desire to learn is largely self-generated”, says Tey. “External policy creates conditions for that desire to be acted upon, but it does not manufacture the desire itself.”

Chasing a dream from long ago

Helen Ko, an associate professor from the S R Nathan School of Human Development at Singapore University of Social Sciences, says that many seniors recognise the need to keep pace with technological and other changes, especially with “society’s constant push for lifelong learning, reskilling, upskilling and the extension of retirement and re-employment ages”.

But some of these seniors did not have the opportunity to get these valued educational qualifications when they were younger.

One example is librarian Mohaini Ibrahim, 70, who did not manage to go to university as a young woman.

“I always wanted to pursue higher studies, but there was no opportunity. I had to devote my time to my career and family,” says the grandmother of three. Her husband, 79, is a retired teacher and they have two adult children.

She was not able to complete a diploma in management studies in her 30s – she had to drop out to care for her late mother, who was ailing then.

She is currently taking a specialist diploma in applied psychology (behavioural insights) at Temasek Polytechnic.

As a librarian in a school, she wanted to understand schoolchildren better. Why, for instance, the lower primary kids who were frequent book borrowers turned into reluctant ones in upper primary school. (One theory was that they had lots more homework to do.)

Mohaini has already applied what she has learnt from her psychology course. “I wanted to improve myself and to get the schoolchildren more interested in reading,” she reflects. “My relationship with my family has also improved. I understand my children and husband better.”