Fourth university to open in 2011

Aug 12, 2008
Fourth university to open in 2011
Classes will be held at temporary location till campus is ready in
2013
By Jane Ng

SINGAPORE'S fourth university will open its doors in 2011, and will
admit 500 students in its first batch.
What is not known yet is where classes will be held between then and
2013, when a permanent campus at Changi will be ready.

The fourth university will sit largely on land that had been put
aside for the aborted University of New South Wales Asia project at
Upper Changi Road - a stone's throw from the Singapore Expo.

Two sites across the road, which are now a primary school holding
site and an empty plot of land, will also be used, for a total land
area of 23ha.

Details of the much-discussed project were released by the Education
Ministry (MOE) yesterday at a press conference chaired by Education
Minister Ng Eng Hen.

When it opens, the university will offer only one or two of the three
disciplines identified for it: engineering and applied sciences,
business and IT, and design and architecture.

With a permanent location, opening date and enrolment announced, the
next step for the institution will be finding a president.

A global search will be led by Far East Organization chief executive
Philip Ng, who was tapped yesterday as the chairman of a steering
committee that will be set up to oversee the establishment of the
university.

The panel will comprise leaders from academia, industry and the
public sector.

Its key tasks include facilitating the appointment of the board of
trustees and management team for the new university, overseeing the
development of the permanent campus and guiding the development of
the academic programmes.

Mr Ng, who was previously involved in setting up the Singapore
Management University and Republic Polytechnic, aims to find a
suitable candidate for president by the first half of next year.

The permanent campus' location will offer students several
advantages.

For one thing, it sits right next to Changi Business Park, which is
home to several high technology companies such as IBM, Honeywell and
Credit Suisse.

This means potential industry partners, where undergraduates can
undergo internships, are right next door.

Getting to class will also be a cinch for students. The campus will
be within walking distance of the Expo MRT station, and is accessible
via the Pan Island Expressway and the East Coast Parkway.

It will also be served by the Downtown Line in 2016.

While its initial intake will be only 500 students, the fourth
university will grow to take in 2,000 to 2,500 students a year in
steady state with an enrolment of between 10,000 and 12,000
undergraduates.

It aims to help increase the number of university places here to 30
per cent of each year's cohort by 2015, up from 25 per cent now.

This means another 2,400 places, to be equally divided among
polytechnic graduates and junior college students, will be available.

The new university will emphasise entrepreneurship and
interdisciplinary learning. Engineering undergraduates, for instance,
will be taught design.

This approach, already adopted by top universities like Stanford
University, is aimed at producing more critical thinkers and
innovative graduates.

The cost of building the university is expected to run into the
hundreds of millions of dollars.

Its design has not been finalised yet, but it will have facilities
like hostels.

Touching on the design, the Education Minister said: 'I would
encourage them to find something that's distinctively Singaporean,
which will give students the feeling: 'Oh, I'm going to enjoy my four
years here because this is a place I'd like to study'.'

One other detail of the new institution that remains to be worked out
is its name.

The MOE is opening this to the public, and you can submit ideas at
www.moe.gov.sg/name-the-uni/.

The exercise ends on Nov 30.