Foreign University Campuses in Singapore

Mr Gan Thiam Poh asked the Minister for Education if the Ministry will continue to encourage established foreign universities to set up campuses here to broaden the options for private education for our local students.

Mr Heng Swee Keat: Since 2002, nine foreign institutions have established branch campuses in Singapore under EDB's Global Schoolhouse initiative, to expand our offerings of high-quality academic programmes. The most recently established is EDHEC Risk Institute – Asia by EDHEC Business School from France in 2010. These nine institutions offer mainly postgraduate and executive education programmes.

MOE has also expanded and diversified options in higher education, through partnerships between local institutions and quality foreign universities.

(a) The Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) offers publicly-funded degree programmes to meet upgrading needs of polytechnic graduates, in collaboration with seven reputable overseas universities, across 17 degree programmes (for example, University of Manchester for Nursing, and University of Newcastle upon Tyne for Engineering, and Food and Human Nutrition). SIT will further expand its course offerings.

(b) The Singapore University of Technology and Design was established in collaboration with MIT and Zhejiang University; and Yale-NUS College was established by NUS in collaboration with Yale University.

(c) The Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) has also partnered the Royal College of Music to offer a publicly-subsidised degree programme, and we will see more such offerings by the Arts Institutions over the next few years.

The Committee to Review University Education Pathways Beyond 2015 chaired by Minister of State Mr Lawrence Wong will look at different options for expanding opportunities for Singaporeans at the degree level.

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