NUS Internal Blended Learning Online Courses (iBLOCs) for Returning Full-Time National Service (NS) men

iBLOCs are mounted from January 2025 to cater to Returning Full-Time National Servicemen (NSmen) who wish to have a head start in university education and more time to transit to academic life. NUS welcomes NSmen who have places reserved for them in NUS and will be matriculating as undergraduates in August 2025 to apply for iBLOCs, if they wish.

1) Dates of iBLOCs for Returning Full-Time NSmen

Period On-site Examination Dates
13 January 2025 to 31 March 2025 [online component] -
1 April to 21 June 2025 [online component and classroom sessions] 20 to 21 June 2025


2) Courses Available

The list of courses to be offered from January 2025 is shown below. Click here for course description. The list of frequently asked questions can be accessed here.

Host Faculty iBLOC Title Course Code Course Type Promotional Videos Main Course Facilitator
Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences Communications, New Media and Society NM1101X Foundation Soh Kai Ruo
cnmskr@nus.edu.sg
School of Computing Programming Methodology CS1010X Foundation Tan Tiow Seng
dcstants@nus.edu.sg
Faculty of Science Introductory Mathematics MA1301X Bridging Tan Ban Pin
mattbp@nus.edu.sg

Note: A foundation course is usually a Level-1000 course which helps to provide foundational training to students before they move on to higher level courses, in subsequent years in their course of study.  A bridging course is to help those without specific ‘A’-Levels courses, to put them on par with those who might have already done so at ‘A’-Level – for example, MA1301X helps students without ‘A’– Level Mathematics.

3) Course Application

Applicants can apply for the iBLOCs they would like to read through the NUS Online Application Portal. Please consult the user guide on how to submit an application for iBLOCs through the NUS Online Application Portal.

Activity Timeline
iBLOC Online Application 25 September to 25 October 2024
Notification of Outcome via Email Late November 2024

It is important that you check the examination timetables of all iBLOCs you intend to take to ensure there are no clashes. See below.

Students can take iBLOCs to satisfy their Programme requirements or Unrestricted Electives requirements depending on their course of study and if they meet the prerequisites for the course. The offer of a place in an iBLOC will depend on the total number of applications.

The time-table for the face-to-face sessions is shown below:

Course Code iBLOC Title Schedule Start Date of First Face-to-face Lessons
NM1101X
Communications, New Media and Society
Thursday 12noon – 3pm for 6 weeks from 10 April 2025 to 15 May 2025
10 April 2025
CS1010X
Programming Methodology

Students enrolled in this course will receive invites to join the learning platform (coursemology.org) with their NUS email accounts. Please log in to your NUS email to look out for invites that will be sent around 20 December 2024. Upon acceptance of the invites, one can then have access to the learning materials.

11 Jan 2025 (Sat), 10AM – 12noon: Organization meeting in campus. This meeting is optional but all students are encouraged to attend. 


All lectures are online with pre-recorded videos. There are two phases: 

Phase One: Online lessons.

13 January 2025 till 29 March 2025, online lessons through zoom.

A. Weekly review of lecture on every Friday evening, 7PM – 8PM. Repeat of this session on Saturday evening, 7PM – 8PM. 
B. Alternate week of online recitation and online tutorial on every Friday evening, 8PM. Each recitation or tutorial is to be repeated on every Saturday evening, 8PM. Each lesson is about 1.5 to 2 hours.

Midterm test on 29 March 2025 (Saturday), 10AM – 12noon. If one cannot appear physically in NUS for the midterm, one should not sign up for this course as there are always many on the waiting list.


Phase Two: Face-to-face

Starting from the week beginning 7 April 2025, face-to-face lessons (Fridays or Saturdays) in NUS. 
Each week has both a recitation and a tutorial for each student. Classes available (Options) are: Friday Tutorial 4:30PM - 5:50PM, Friday Tutorial 6PM - 7:20PM, and Friday Recitation 7:30PM - 9PM); and Saturday Recitation 6PM - 7:20PM (2 classes), and Saturday Recitation 7:30PM - 9PM.

Practical examination is on 30 May 2025 (Friday), 7:30PM – 9:30PM, and Final examination is on 20 June 2025 (Friday), 9AM –11AM. Again, if one cannot appear physically in NUS for these assessments, one should not sign up for this course as there are always many on the waiting list.

11 April 2025, Friday


The repeat session of this is on 12 April 2025, Saturday evening.

MA1301X
Introductory Mathematics

5 fortnightly lessons on Friday from 2PM to 5PM (4 April 2025, 18 April 2025, 2 May 2025, 16 May 2025, 30 May 2025)

 

4 April 2025


** While the Introductory Meeting is optional, students taking the course are strongly encouraged to attend the session.

4) Dropping of Course(s)

Students may choose to drop any iBLOCs for which they have registered for without any grade penalty up to the day before the start of the examination period, i.e., by 19 June 2025. However, please note the fee policy that will be applicable for dropping courses within the following timelines:

Drop Course during this period Fee Policy
13 January to 28 February 2025 Fees not payable
From 1 March 2025 Fees payable

To drop an iBLOC, students will have to complete the Drop Course & Withdrawal Form and send it to the Office of the University Registrar (OUR) via email to nghelp@nus.edu.sg with a copy to the main course facilitator. Students who decide to drop all courses will be deemed to have withdrawn from the programme.

5) Fees

For each iBLOC to be offered in January 2025, students will be charged S$825 per course. There will be no refund once fees are charged.

All registered students are also charged the Miscellaneous Student Fees (MSF) to help meet costs incurred by the University in providing services to the student community that are either not covered or only partially covered by the tuition fee and government subsidy. For students reading iBLOCs, the Miscellaneous Student Fees (MSF) payable are shown in the table below:

Miscellaneous Student Fees (MSF) Amount Payable for the January - June 2025 Period
Student Services Fee (SSF) (Non-Exchange) S$40.30
Health Service Fee (HSF) S$55.00

Notes:

  1. All fees shown here are inclusive of prevailing GST.
  2. Late payment charge of S$25 will be imposed for any outstanding fees after payment due date.

Available modes of fee payment are:

  • NETS at Student Service Centre (SSC)
  • Domestic Cheque / Bank Draft
  • E-Payment (E-NETS/Debit/Credit/PayNow QR)

Students can check their Student Bill via Education Records System from 1 March 2025 for the actual amount of fees charged before making the payment by 15 March 2025. Should fees remain outstanding after the fee payment deadline, a Negative Service Indicator (NSI) will be tagged against your student account as a “Hold” and you will not be able to access your online examination results and your NUS transcript will also be withheld. 

Financial Assistance Schemes for Payment of Tuition Fees:- Eligible students can apply for the Post-Secondary Education Account (PSEA) Scheme, Tuition Fee Loan and NUS Study Loan (under Financial Aid) for payment of tuition fees. Further details will be provided in the offer letter from Office of the University Registrar. (Note. The PSEA can also be used for payment of Miscellaneous Student Fees.)

Recipients of the NUS Global Merit Scholarship, NUS Merit Scholarship, NUS Undergraduate (Merit) Scholarship, NUS Sports Scholarship, NUS Performing & Visual Arts Scholarship, Stephen Riady Young Entrepreneur Scholarship Undergraduate Scholarship and the Wee Cho Yaw Future Leaders Award, may apply for the reimbursement of their iBLOC course fees under the scholarships, if they graduate earlier than the typical duration of studies for their degrees and subject to approval. The application must be submitted to the Office of Financial Aid within two months of the release of their final examination results.  

For enquiries on financial aid and scholarship matters, please write to: https://www.askadmissions.nus.edu.sg/

6) Examination Related Matters

The dates for examination and release of examination results are as follows:

Activities iBLOC Term for RNS men
Examination Period 20 to 21 June 2025
Deadline to submit Special Consideration Forms 24 June 2025 (6 PM)
Release of Examination Results 4 July 2025 (11 AM)
Deadline to submit Application for Review of Examination Results 6 July 2025 (6 PM)


The examination timetable is as follows:

Date Time Course Code Course Description Venue
20 June 2025
(Friday)
2.30 PM MA1301X Introductory Mathematics

The exam venue and seat number will be available at the Examination Directory one week before the exam.

20 June 2025
(Friday)

9.00 AM CS1010X Programming Methodology^
^ CS1010X has a practical exam component.

NM1101X will be graded with 100% CA (continuous assessment), i.e., no final exam.

You are expected to be familiar with the Examination Rules, details of which are published in the Examination Directory. Please note that a breach of any of the examination rules will render you liable to disciplinary action.

You may also check your semestral examination results and print a copy of your unofficial transcript via Student Centre in the Education Records System. Your grades will be reflected on your unofficial transcript from the 11th calendar day after the official date for release of examination results.


7) Online Student Feedback Exercise

Students are encouraged to participate in the Online Student Feedback Exercise as it is an important element of the University's process for quality assurance of education. Students will be notified of the specific dates of the Student Feedback Exercise in due course.

8) Access iBLOC Course Materials

All students will have an email account at NUS that will be their official point of contact. Most communications from NUS to students will be via the official email account. To access your NUS email account, proceed to NUS home page at https://www.nus.edu.sg and click on 'EMAIL', located on the top right hand corner of the webpage. Students who are taking iBLOCs from January to June 2025 as a Non-Graduating student will receive Welcome emails from your instructors. Hence it is important that students check their NUS email account once they have completed the registration processs by late December 2024 or early January 2025.

Students must complete their online Registration (Part One) and change their default NUS-ID password before logging into the portal. To access Canvas, click on NUS User Login. At the organization sign-in page, please sign in with your NUS-ID (starting with the letter 'e') as the UserID, eg: UserID@u.nus.edu or UserID, followed by your new NUS-ID password.

9) Advanced placement credits with grade

According to the University’s Advanced Placement Credits (APC) Policy, upon admission, you may apply for the iBLOC(s) to be transferred into your undergraduate (UG) student record as Advanced Placement Credits with Grade (APG) if you satisfy the criteria of obtaining D grade or above for the course. With the APG, the grade and units earned will be computed into your Grade Point Average (GPA). However, you may choose to exercise the Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (S/U) grading option for the course (if eligible) during the S/U option exercise conducted upon results release at the end of Semester 1, AY2024/2025 together with your other Semester 1 courses. Courses for which students have opted for S/U grading will not impact the GPA and the letter grade will not be shown on the transcript. An 'S' grade will be assigned if you obtain a grade of D or better (i.e., grade point of 1.0 and above); a 'U' grade will be assigned if the grade obtained is lower than a D grade. You will only receive units towards the degree if you attain a 'Satisfactory' (S) grade and a course with a 'U' grade earns no unit. You should refer to the policies relating to the Grade-free scheme and the number of units which can be taken on an S/U basis here. The S/U option will apply to all Level 1000 courses (with or without pre-requisites) and Level 2000 courses without other NUS courses as pre-requisites, unless otherwise stipulated by the Faculties/Departments.

After the release of examination results, the Office of the University Registrar will contact students who are eligible for the APG via email to inform them that they may apply to transfer the course(s) which they have achieved a D grade or above.

For enquiries on the APC policy, please write to: advplacement@nus.edu.sg


10) Update Contact Details

You are responsible for updating your mailing address and other contact details via Student Centre in the Education Records System. Please ensure that information is valid at all times.

11) Contact Information

For general enquiries on iBLOCs, please send your email to: telenquiry@nus.edu.sg.
For enquiries related to application, please kindly fill up this form or contact us at 6516 1476.