Provost Welcomes Singapore Students as Part of the Occupational Therapy Degree Programme

Posted on: 10 March 2013

Thirty-two Singaporean students have spent the past six weeks at Trinity College Dublin completing their Overseas Immersion Programme (OIP) as part of their occupational therapy degree which is being delivered by Occupational Therapy at Trinity.  The Provost met with the students last week.

The initiative is the first international collaboration of its kind for Trinity College Dublin, where it provides degrees in occupational therapy and physiotherapy to students in Singapore. Trinity College Dublin and the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) signed a partnership last year, offering the degrees that are designed, taught and awarded by Trinity College Dublin.

The degrees will be Singapore’s first full-time degrees in occupational therapy and physiotherapy. Classes are conducted at Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP), forming part of the SIT distributed campus. All students already have diplomas in occupational therapy and physiotherapy and the new Bachelor in Science programmes in occupational therapy and physiotherapy provided by Trinity will now confer them with an honours degree on graduating after one year.

While the degree programme is delivered in Singapore, one of the requirements of  SIT was for students to spend a period of time in Trinity College during their one-year programme. The reason for this is to give students an opportunity to develop an identity as TCD students and to spend time with Trinity-based occupational therapy and physiotherapy students. Physiotherapy students are due to arrive in Trinity in early April for their Overseas Immersion Programme.

The occupational therapy students arrived in Dublin on January 14th last. Since that time they have completed a six-week module as part of their degree. This involved visiting a number of occupational therapy services in order to experience a range of occupational therapy practice in the Dublin area. Sites visited over the six weeks included primary care services in the South inner city; medical and elderly services in St James’s Hospital; the National Rehabilitation Hospital brain injury programme; Royal Hospital Donnybrook and the Fatima and Dolphin community health programmes.

During their six weeks OIP, physiotherapy students will complete four-week placements in St James’s Hospital, Tallaght and Beaumont Hospitals; Primary Care services and the Central Remedial Clinic. These services have been chosen to reflect some of the developing healthcare areas of Singapore hence enabling students to explore how similar services could be designed and delivered in Singapore.

The Singapore occupational therapy students also had weekly peer learning tutorials with other TCD students including occupational therapy, physiotherapy, medicine, nursing and speech and language students. The feedback from the Singapore students about their OIP has been extremely positive with students stating how much they enjoyed, and learned from this module.  Students also took the opportunity during their six weeks to visit different parts of Ireland including the Cliffs of Moher,  Glendalough and the Giant’s Causeway. The students return to Singapore within the next week in order to complete their final modules in Singapore. The next cohort of occupational therapy students from Singapore are due in January 2014.