Changi campus for S'pore's 4th university

August 12, 2008
Changi campus for S'pore's 4th university
By LEE U-WEN

THE sprawling plot of land near the Singapore Expo - which was to
have housed the now-defunct University of New South Wales (UNSW) Asia
campus - has found a new occupant at last.

Singapore's new publicly funded university will make its home at the
vacant 22.6-hectare site along Upper Changi Road, with the first
buildings set to be ready by 2013, said the Ministry of Education
(MOE) yesterday.

Students, however, need not even wait that long. The inaugural intake
of 500 will begin classes much earlier at an interim campus in 2011,
just three years from now.

Overseeing the establishment of the new university - Singapore's
fourth publicly funded one - is Far East Organization's chief
executive officer Philip Ng Chee Tat.

The well-known businessman is no stranger to the education field as
he is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the National
University of Singapore (NUS), and was involved in the setting up of
both the Singapore Management University (SMU) and Republic
Polytechnic.

Outlining his plans during a press conference yesterday, Mr Ng, 49,
said his main priorities are to develop a masterplan for the
university's campus development, come up with a suitable curriculum
model and, more immediately, to start a global hunt for its first
president.

Members of his committee, who will be named by the end of the year,
comprise leaders from academia, industry and the public sector, he
said.

On what sort of shape the university might take, Mr Ng said things
were still at the drawing board stage but he might consider a 'garden
university' concept, similar to what UNSW Asia was to look like.

UNSW announced in May last year that it would close its Asia campus
because of lower-than-expected enrolments and the financial risks
involved in continuing the venture.

Said Mr Ng: 'What we want to do is build an institution with its own
character and identity, with good quality accommodation, easy access
to public transport, and look at possible synergies with the
surrounding industries such as banking and IT.'

One key advantage of having a university just next to the Changi
Business Park is the opportunity to expose students to high
technology businesses and knowledge-intensive facilities of leading
companies, he said.

Education Minister Ng Eng Hen said that the budget for setting up
this university is likely to cost 'hundreds of millions of dollars',
although no firm figure has been derived as plans are still being
drawn up.

He added that the MOE and the steering committee would be closely
studying the SMU example, which also took about three years of
planning before opening its doors.

One of the chief reasons why the government is building this latest
varsity is to increase the number of university places to 30 per cent
of each year's cohort by 2015, up from 25 per cent currently.

That works out to about 2,400 more places, which will be equally
split between polytechnic graduates and junior college students.

The new university will be able to take in a steady stream of up to
2,500 students a year and offer three main disciplines - business,
design and engineering.

The public, meanwhile, can have their say in what they want the new
university to be called. A consultation exercise is currently on
until Nov 30, and those who want to submit their ideas can do so at
www.moe.gov.sg/name-the-uni/ for the steering committee's
consideration.