Polytechnic and ITE holidays

Why none of these looks like the MOE calendar

The five polytechnics run an academic year from April to April. All five start Semester 1 on Monday 20 April 2026 and all five finish the year on Sunday 18 April 2027. Inside that they take two long vacations, one from around the start of September to 18 October 2026 and one from early March to 18 April 2027, plus two shorter breaks, one in June and one over the turn of the year.

ITE splits its students by the month they started. January-intake courses, meaning Nitec and the three-year Higher Nitec, run January to December and look closer to the MOE shape. April-intake courses, the ITE Diplomas and the two-year Higher Nitec, run April to April on the polytechnic rhythm. Two students on the same ITE campus can be on different academic years, which is why a single ITE table is wrong for whichever half of the audience it left out.

MOE runs four terms from early January to mid-November, with breaks in March, June, September and at the year end. Set that against the above and the overlap is thin. A household with one child in secondary school and one in a polytechnic gets the December window and part of June, and not much else. The secondary-school year finishes in November while the polytechnic year still has five months to run.

Every polytechnic break ends on the same day. None of them starts on the same day

This is the part worth knowing before you book anything. Across AY2026/2027, all five polytechnics finish each break on exactly the same date. Not one of the four breaks starts on the same date at all five.

The reason is structural. The end date is fixed by the next teaching block, and all five polytechnics resume teaching together. The start date is whatever falls out of each polytechnic’s own assessment schedule, and those are not the same length. Ngee Ann gives its study and examination period two weeks and starts the long vacation on Monday 31 August 2026. Nanyang gives it three and starts on Monday 7 September 2026. Same last day, seven days apart at the front.

Republic is an outlier in a different way. Its final assessment ends on a Tuesday in both semesters, so it is the only one of the five whose long vacation starts mid-week: Wednesday 2 September 2026, and Wednesday 10 March 2027.

ITE has four calendars, and you need the right one

ITE publishes four separate academic calendars for AY2026/2027. They do not share a start month and they do not share the same set of vacations. Pick yours before you read any dates.

1. 1. Nitec courses, January intake

   You started a Nitec course in January 2026.

2. 2. 3-year Higher Nitec courses, January intake

   You started a three-year Higher Nitec course in January 2026.

3. 3. ITE Diplomas and selected 2-year Higher Nitec courses, April intake

   You started an ITE Diploma in April 2026, or Year 2 of one of the nine engineering and technology Higher Nitec courses ITE names in the footnote.

4. 4. 2-year Higher Nitec courses, April intake

   You started a two-year Higher Nitec course in April 2026, including Higher Nitec in Early Childhood Education. The nine engineering courses in the footnote above are the exception and use the calendar above.

ITE Teachers' Day: Fri, 4 Sept 2026

Source: the ITE academic calendar

The five polytechnics

One calendar each, except Singapore Polytechnic, which also publishes the following year and labels it Indicative. Row labels are the institution’s own wording.

How to read these tables

A gap between one row ending and the next beginning is not a holiday. On ITE’s calendars every such gap is either a weekend or the study and examination block on the row above. Two of the four ITE calendars print a dash where a study and examination period would sit, which means training runs to the last working day before the vacation. We have kept those dashed rows in rather than deleting them, because deleting them is what turns a study period into an imaginary week off.

ITE counts vacation in weeks that include the weekends at both ends. Its two-week vacations run Saturday to Sunday, so 21 March to 5 April 2026 is 16 calendar days and 10 weekdays. Its four-week vacations, 13 June to 12 July 2026 and 12 December 2026 to 10 January 2027, are 30 calendar days and 20 weekdays.

Republic’s Flexible Learning Weeks are scheduled learning, not a break, so they are not counted as vacation here even though no class meets in the usual way. Singapore Polytechnic’s home-based learning days carry SP’s own "subject to confirmation" label and we have kept it.

What is not here, and why

• AY2027/2028 for five of the six. Only Singapore Polytechnic publishes it, and SP labels its own version Indicative. We have not extrapolated the other five from this year’s pattern, because a plausible date printed as fact is worse than no date.
• Week counts for Ngee Ann and Temasek. Neither publishes a duration column, so those cells are blank rather than calculated by us.
• A 2027 college holiday list for ITE. ITE publishes one holiday for 2026, ITE Teachers’ Day on Friday 4 September 2026, and nothing for 2027, so we show nothing for 2027.
• Course-level variations. Several ITE and polytechnic courses carry internships, overseas placements and industry attachments that override the published vacation. The calendars here are the institution-wide ones, and SP says outright that vacation is subject to polytechnic activities such as internship. Your course office is the authority on your own dates.

Common questions