Pre-Training Briefing Session

  • Date: Saturday, 27 February 2021
  • Time: 11.00am – 12.00pm
  • Venue: On Zoom
  • Date: Monday, 1 March 2021
  • Time: 3.00pm – 4.00pm
  • Venue: NUS Baba House
  • Capacity: 16 pax

Docent Training Programme

  • Date: 5 April 2021 – 27 May 2021
  • Time: Mondays, 9.00am – 1.00pm
  • Alternate Thursdays, 11.30am – 1.00pm

Fees: $278

Includes a Baba House Guidebook, workshop fees and guided tours. $100 refundable upon completion of guiding 12 heritage tours (docents) or involvement in running 5 programmes (volunteers).

Please email docenttraining2021@nus.edu.sg to register for the briefing sessions (capped at 16 for the onsite session, first-come-first-served) or for further enquiries.

Application Deadline: 14 March 2021

Apply here!


We are seeking committed and enthusiastic individuals to join us as docents and volunteers!

The NUS Baba House Docent and Volunteer Training Programme will introduce participants to the NUS Baba House’s history, urban heritage and restoration, and its past and present social significance. It will also equip participants with an introductory background to Peranakan culture and its related critical discourses.

As a docent, you will share insights about the NUS Baba House and Peranakan culture to local and international visitors through Heritage Tours offered on weekday mornings. As a volunteer, you will be involved in conceptualizing and running Outreach programmes at the NUS Baba House on Saturdays and when needed.

This year’s programme is an 8-week course consisting of training sessions, a series of public talks, workshops, and internal research presentations. Please refer to the FAQ or further information.

About the NUS baba House

Built around 1895, the NUS Baba House is a three-storey townhouse located along Neil Road in Singapore’s historic Blair Plain conservation district that was once the ancestral home of a Peranakan Chinese family. Acquired by the National University of Singapore in 2006 from funds donated by Ms Agnes Tan and opened in 2008 after extensive restoration works, the space now functions as a heritage house contextualizing Peranakan Chinese material culture, aesthetics, social history, and architecture within a domestic setting. It offers researchers and visitors alike an opportunity to uncover its complexities and intricacies.


Our docents come with a whole host of interests, which make a difference to our programmes and community initiatives. Read on to find out more about the NUS Baba House docent experience!

Spotlight

Docents are volunteer guides who are instrumental to the activities at the NUS Baba House, leading regular heritage tours as well as co-creating and hosting educational visits with groups of all ages. This interview with docent Dawn Marie Lee reveals more about the work of such volunteers in museum education.

Read more…

Social Media

“Guiding at the Baba House is a completely different feel compared to the museum. It is more intimate as though we are visiting a friend’s house. I get to talk about the family who had lived in the house, and how the house was conserved to its present glory. We can get up close and personal with the artefacts which are not enclosed in cases and even the visitors are allowed to sit on some very old furniture that was original to the house! “

– NUS Baba House Docent, Wai Leen.

Get to know our #peopleofBH on instagram

Our docents narrate the latest audio series from the NUS Baba House: Life at 157. Hear from the man of the house himself, Wee Lin, as he recounts Life at 157 in conversation with honorary curator Peter Lee.

Listen to our podcast here!