SINGAPORE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN BILL

SINGAPORE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN BILL: Order for Second Reading read.

3.26 pm

The Minister for Education (Dr Ng Eng Hen): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Singapore's university sector has evolved considerably since its inception as a small medical college in 1905. It took another about 80 years before we had about 8% of our cohort going into university. And from there, 30 years to reach 26% and we are on track, by 2015, to reach the target of 30%.

But it would be a mistake in developing the university sector to focus just on expanding the number of places because that would basically pit us against other countries on a comparative disadvantage. Let me give Members two examples – two hefty ones. China recently announced their goal to have eight million graduates a year by 2020. India similarly has committed to six million graduates a year by 2020. Combined, 14 million graduates a year compared to our figure of about 14,000 graduates. You can do the maths. We cannot compete on numbers. Instead, we must always differentiate ourselves from the rest of the pack by attaining the highest quality of tertiary education in Singapore. We must be bold and open to new models that will become more relevant as the future unfolds. We need to do this, if our students are to acquire a competitive edge in education against other graduates. So, quality and innovation have therefore been the key themes that have guided our university sector, not the number of places. This is the approach that has led to the creation of the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) – for which the Bill is being read today – but also the Singapore Institute of Technology, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, new degree programmes at NAFA and LASALLE, and also the Yale-NUS College.

I would like to use this opportunity to give some brief updates on the various institutions so that Members can see the overall landscape in addition to SUTD.

The Singapore Institute of Technology's (SIT) model preserves and leverages on the strengths of our polytechnic sector. It provides polytechnic students an option to obtain a university degree from well-regarded foreign universities. This approach has many advantages, not least the focus on producing graduates who are attuned to the needs of industry and business. Within a short time, SIT has gathered an impressive stable of top institutions – including the University of Manchester, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Newcastle University, University of Glasgow, University of Nevada (Las Vegas), the DigiPen Institute of Technology and the Culinary Institute of America.

The Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCSOM) is a tie-up between NTU and Imperial College London (ICL). It will not only produce more doctors – because we need them to cater to our health care needs – but also facilitate innovations in the field of medicine. Imperial College was chosen because it will provide a different and complementary model to the existing Yong Loo Lin Medical School and Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School. Like NTU, Imperial College has strong engineering expertise and is a world leader in applying technology to the field of medicine. It also has a deep ethos of producing doctors who are patient-centred.

The Yale-NUS College (YNC) will be another unique model that provides a different pathway for students. I have described it as "strategic for Singapore". Indeed, it can prove to be, at various levels. For schools, especially pre-university education, the YNC, as the pinnacle programme at NUS, will have a pervasive and powerful effect. It will signal to students and parents that critical thinking, analysis and deliberation, which are hallmarks of liberal arts education, will be needed and valued in education. Singaporeans and Asians are, if anything, pragmatists. If it does not count, it matters less. A liberal arts college will be a physical reminder that, as Einstein remarked, "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." It will hopefully move us from a system that is now world-renown for students who answer set questions well, to one that produces students who want to start asking the right questions to produce solutions to complex problems. Our curriculum in our junior colleges and polytechnics has already started on this journey. The YNC will accelerate this.

Last year, we have also made quality enhancements in our two arts institutions – NAFA and LASALLE – for new high-quality programmes they will offer in partnership with reputable foreign universities. This will create an additional pathway for students with strong talents in the arts.

As our economy restructures into high productivity, high value-added industries, our universities must complement this strategy by being engines of knowledge, innovation and enterprise. Our universities should ride on tides of global developments and help Singaporeans seize valuable opportunities that will come our way. The rise of China in this century will drastically re-shape the global landscape. The US economy, with its dynamism and a constant capacity to re-invent itself will continue to be a potent economic force, its present problems notwithstanding. Singapore needs to ride on the wave of growth in China and tap on good ideas from the US. With our cosmopolitan outlook and bilingual language and culture, we can function as a bridge between these two giant economies. This was the motivation behind the establishment of SUTD, in collaboration with two top universities in their respective countries, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from the US and Zhejiang University from China.

All these new institutions that I have listed, which were added within the last two years – the SIT with its top-class foreign partners, NTU's new medical school with Imperial College, SUTD, the Yale-NUS College, new degree programmes at NAFA and LASALLE – now position our higher education sector for the future. We have a forward-looking higher education sector, not a backward-glancing one, which will prepare our students well for their future. And I think they offer exciting new and high quality tertiary education for Singaporeans, and to attract top international talent.

Let me now focus on the substance of today's Bill, SUTD. First, SUTD is conceptualised as a medium-sized, high-quality and research-intensive university, with an undergraduate population of about 4,000, focusing on technology and design in the disciplines of engineering, information systems and architecture. SUTD hopes to produce graduates who are innovators, who can bring ideas from the drawing board into the real economy, very much like what MIT and Zhejiang University have produced. For those who know these universities, that is indeed the culture of these two universities. Apart from these foreign partners, SUTD will also leverage on other local universities. For example and as a start, SUTD and the Singapore Management University (SMU) are exploring the possibility of working together to launch mutually beneficial educational programmes.

Second, we established SUTD in collaboration with MIT and Zhejiang University, both of which are eminent universities representing the best of East and West. SUTD students will benefit from MIT’s strong tradition of engineering excellence and entrepreneurial spirit. Its core curriculum will be jointly developed with MIT and will involve top MIT faculty in co-teaching the programmes. Through Zhejiang University, SUTD students will gain access to China, through the electives developed and delivered by Zhejiang University faculty in SUTD. There will also be opportunities for students to spend time both in MIT and Zhejiang University.

This unique East-West partnership, with SUTD positioned at the centre, offers many opportunities for the flow of ideas and talent. This will be mutually beneficial to all three parties. This partnership has yielded results even before SUTD formally starts lessons. Led by MIT faculty, SUTD students-to-be participated in the International Robotics Competition in Shanghai last year. It has not started classes yet; they were just basically on the enrolment list. So, SUTD decided to rope these students-to-be to participate in the International Robotics Competition, and they emerged in second and third places.

SUTD's mission is to nurture technologically grounded leaders to serve societal needs. Its educational programme will be distinctive in several ways:

(a) First, as undergraduates, SUTD students will be exposed to research that is focused on addressing global challenges in areas such as healthcare, energy and environment, and those that the developing world faces;

(b) Second, its curriculum will be multi-disciplinary, with degree programmes cutting across traditional engineering disciplines and integrated by design as a central theme; and

(c) Third, internships and innovation programmes will also feature strongly in SUTD's curricular and extra-curricular programmes.

The cost of such a high quality education at SUTD will be high. It is a different format, and you need it to develop smaller classes, a lot of interaction and it will cost about two to three times that of traditional courses. As I mentioned in this House previously, it is only fair that benefiting students bear their fair share of the costs and pay higher fees compared to other programmes in the local universities. At the same time, financial aid options, including loans and bursaries will be available for qualified needy students. As with all other publicly-funded universities, the Government will ensure that no capable student will be denied a chance to matriculate at SUTD due to the lack of financial resources.

Our intent is for SUTD to be an Autonomous University, a separate legal entity, allowing it to take full ownership of its own development. This is the same approach that we had used for the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University. Basically, the greater autonomy promotes differentiation and motivates these universities to want to achieve greater excellence.

However, given the substantial investment of public monies in SUTD and the key role our universities play in nation building, it will, like our other autonomous universities, have to be gazetted by an Act of Parliament to safeguard public interests. The SUTD Bill will, therefore, serve three key functions:

(a) First, it signals to the public the Government's support for SUTD and assures the public of SUTD's credibility and standing;

(b) Second, it empowers the Government to better guide the strategic development of SUTD towards meeting national objectives; and

(c) Third, the Bill enables the Government to resource the university adequately to meet these objectives, while putting in place an accountability framework to monitor the use of public funds.

Let me now highlight the key clauses in this Bill:

(a) Clauses 3 and 8 will signal the Government’s support for SUTD to the public. Clause 3 affirms the function of the university and allows the university to confer and award degrees and other qualifications in its own name. Clause 8 makes provision for the Government to provide funding to SUTD, which will be expected to be deployed only for those objectives agreed to by the Minister for Education;

(b) Clauses 4 to 7 safeguard public interest by granting the Minister for Education the power to appoint and remove Trustees, and to give his consent for: (i) the admission and removal of members of the university; (ii) the disposal of the university's undertaking or property; (iii) the voluntary winding-up of the university; and (iv) any alterations to the university's constituent documents.

(c) Clause 9 provides accountability for the use of public funds by requiring the university to allow the Minister full and free access to the company's financial information; and

(d) Clause 12 provides for a consequential amendment to the Private Education Act 2009 (PE Act) to exempt SUTD from the PE Act.

SUTD is on track to matriculate its first cohort of students next year (2012). Students who have been admitted thus far are of a high quality both in grades and co-curricular activities. We are also very pleased with the ownership and engagement of MIT and Zhejiang University. MIT and SUTD have agreed to mount Dual-Masters programmes this year; in other words, two Masters degrees – one from SUTD and one from MIT. As a signal of MIT's commitment and confidence in the quality of SUTD. The local industry and community have also been forthcoming with numerous offers of internships and scholarships to students of SUTD, showing their support for this innovative curriculum.

I am confident that SUTD will, in due course, become a new peak of excellence in Singapore's higher education landscape, and be upheld as an innovation in the global university sector.

Mr Speaker, Sir, this Bill will facilitate our goals and aspirations for SUTD.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Speaker: Order. I propose to take the break now. I suspend the Sitting and will take the Chair again at 4.00 pm.

Sitting accordingly suspended

at 3.40 pm until 4.00 pm

Sitting resumed at 4.00pm

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]:

SINGAPORE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN BILL: Debate resumed.

Mrs Josephine Teo (Bishan-Toa Payoh): Mr Speaker, Sir, I declare my interest as a member of the Board of Trustees of the SUTD. Sir, in Mandarin, please.

( In Mandarin ) : For vernacular speech, please refer to Appendix A . Mr Speaker, whenever I do house visits in Toa Payoh, I will always notice the photos hanging on the walls of many residents' living rooms. The biggest and the best framed is usually the one with parents posing with their children donning the black graduation robes and the mortarboards.

When parents talk about how their children have managed to improve themselves in times of adversity, the smiles reveal the pride in their heart. You see this kind of heartwarming scene more often in 3-room HDB apartments.

Asian families value highly their children's education. To send their children to universities is many parents' life time dream; some would not hesitate to spend all their savings on their children's tuition. These parents have high expectations of their children, hoping that a good education will boost the children's career in the future. Hence, we must be very careful when it comes to planning our university education.

Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) will be Singapore's fourth university and the second brand new university after the independence. SUTD's uniqueness is that it does not only collaborate with a top US university, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but also with one of China's top universities, Zhejiang University. SUTD is likely to become the pioneer of a new era of combining eastern and western education.

There are two things we need to pay special attention to. First is the job prospects of SUTD's graduates; second, is how to lay a solid foundation for the students so that they can face the ever growing global competition.

( In English ) : I would like to make two observations. The first is that during the global financial crisis of 2008/2009, many college degree graduates in US and Europe lost their jobs to due to a combination of offshoring, productivity improvements and lack of economic growth.

One estimate is that close to 1.1 million jobs in corporate finance, IT and other business functions were lost in large US and European companies in 2008 and 2009. Over 1.3 million additional jobs will disappear by 2014. Many of these are white-collar jobs held by college degree holders.

The second observation is that the trend of offshoring white-collar jobs has emerged due in large part to a vastly increased supply of university graduates in countries like China. In 1998, China produced fewer than 900,000 university graduates each year. In a little over a decade, this number has increased more than seven-fold. This year, it is estimated that nearly 6.5 million Chinese will graduate with a university degree. They will join an estimated 1.5 million graduates from the previous batches to compete for jobs in the labour market. We heard earlier from the Minister that China has set a goal of 8 million university graduates by 2020. So those are very large numbers indeed.

Fortunately in Singapore, employment of fresh graduates has remained high. Typically, out of every 100 new university graduates, between 93 and 95 are able to find jobs within six months. Even during the very difficult years in 2008 and 2009, more than 90% of fresh graduates could find work within six months.

Nonetheless, the global explosion in the supply of graduate workers will mean that we cannot assume this will be the case year after year. In the face of such intense competition, how will we ensure Singapore graduates, in particular, those from a new university like SUTD, firstly, will secure employment upon graduation? And, secondly, have an education that prepares them for the global competition?

Sir, finally, I would like to touch on the issue of affordability. During this year's Committee of Supply, the Minister for Education outlined the many ways in which our education system still provided opportunities for upward social mobility.

Sir, the fees for the SUTD are going to be quite high, as the Minister has also acknowledged, and more than that for comparable courses in NUS and NTU. While I understand this is because of factors such as the student-faculty ratio, I would like to have the Minister's assurance, once again, that no student who qualifies for the SUTD will be denied an education there because his family cannot afford it.

Sir, in conclusion, I would like to point out that Singapore has been very prudent in managing the number of university graduates. Taiwan, which has a population of about 23 million, has 23 universities and produces 250,000 college graduates each year, many of whom are under-employed or unemployed. As a Taiwanese education journalist noted, over 20% of the graduates would need to spend at least one year to land a job. Malaysia, our nearest neighbour, has a population of 29 million, 21 universities and produces 155,000 graduates each year. That is more than 10 times the number that we produce and theirs is a population of maybe five to six times of ours.

Singapore produces far fewer new graduates each year. I did a quick calculation: it is about one for every 400 in our population. This compares to Taiwan's one per 100 population and Malaysia's one per 200 population.

Nonetheless, the number of graduates in Singapore is also on the rise. Thirty percent of each cohort will get a degree. Forty percent will get a polytechnic diploma, and of the 40%, nearly 60% will advance to degree qualifications within 10 years of graduating. Now, this means that in total, about 54% or well over half of the current and future cohorts of Singaporeans will be degree-qualified.

I think this is great news for parents and goes a long way to meeting the aspirations of younger Singaporeans, provided we are able to ensure the employability of university graduates within Singapore and in competition with the rest of the world. Only then will a university degree be a meaningful attainment, fulfilling the expectations of the parents and graduates alike. Sir, I look forward to hearing the Minister's view on this.

*Cols. 4857-4858.

4.09 pm

Mr Christopher de Souza (Holland-Bukit Timah): Mr Speaker, Sir, thank you for allowing me to join in this debate. I would like to express my strong support for this Bill.

People are the most important resource we have and Singapore has always invested heavily in education, regardless of economic cycles. Despite the major financial crises in 2008 and 2009, the Ministry of Education has seen through the plans for our fourth university. This shows that the Government and Minister for Education are serious about and committed to delivering education for our children despite difficult economic climates. This Bill exemplifies the Government’s commitment to providing first class education to future generations of Singaporeans. I would like to go into two main points about the Bill followed by some queries.

Firstly, Sir, while the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) is a welcome addition to Singapore's university landscape, it is also a new institution and it will need to differentiate itself from its peers. In particular, SUTD is predominantly an engineering school and will undoubtedly be considered alongside NUS and NTU, both of which are established universities in their own right, offering a broad range of engineering and related disciplines. Against this backdrop, how will the SUTD’s genre of education be different and differentiated from engineering and architecture programmes in other universities both locally and abroad? How does it plan to attract its fair share of talented students as well as faculty members?

Secondly, Sir, the establishment of SUTD was announced in 2009. The collaborations with its key partner institutions, MIT and Zhejiang University, were also finalised in January and August 2010 respectively. Can the Minister for Education update the House on the progress of SUTD's development in preparation for its first undergraduate intake in April 2012? Perhaps the Minister can also update the House on the progress of the graduate programmes under SUTD's fold?

I hope the Minister will be able to shed light on these two points and, with that, I record my strong support for the Bill.

Dr Ng Eng Hen: Mr Speaker, let me thank the Members for their support for the Bill.

They have both raised very relevant issues that entered our thinking in designing and implementing this fourth university – SUTD. In fact, if I can sum up, first, how do we ensure that in the face of not only an increasing number of graduates locally but globally, on an explosion of graduates coming onstream, that whatever university we create, for today's Bill, SUTD adds value to graduates in terms of employability and training of their minds? Mr Christopher de Souza's point: how do we ensure that it adds value and can I give some updates? Let me address these questions.

Mrs Josephine Teo is absolutely spot-on. In the face of these changes and trends, we cannot plan a university especially for our small population just to cater only to aspirations. Aspirations count. We can recount how all of us, during our house-to-house visits, see photos of parents and their graduate children wearing their caps. Invariably, their mother and father will bring you to the photo and then will explain to you where it was and how it was such a defining moment. We have to meet these aspirations, but we have to meet them such that there is value in the education they get. As I have mentioned, with 14 million graduates coming onstream and given that the world is interconnected, employers will have a choice of the type of graduates they want.

Our approach to SUTD was to give something different. We do not know what we do not know and the best bet is to bring in people with very strong entrepreneurial and very credible capabilities as university professors to design the curriculum. It is a very novel concept to just amalgamate all three disciplines: Information Systems, Architecture and Engineering. To have a common curriculum that has not been done in any university I know of. As I travel and share these plans, the responses have been very intriguing. It has gone off to a good start and we want to be able to offer to students something special.

By the end of the day, how do we know if we will succeed? The way you know is by looking at intermediate markers. The type of students who apply for it because students are quite clever, and the faculty members.

By way of sharing progress: I think we have got on to a good start. We had two admission exercises last year – April and October 2010. SUTD has set very high admission standards and despite that, it has received over 2,000 applications. High calibre students who are basically in the top 10 percentile of our population.

Secondly, faculty members. SUTD has also successfully recruited an initial core of top faculty which includes academics and graduates from Cambridge, Harvard, Stanford, EPF in Lausanne, Switzerland. In fact, seven of them are now in MIT for a year-long customised faculty development programme. They are there, so they are working alongside MIT professors designing the curriculum for SUTD.

Thirdly, industry's response. The way industry responds to this university will tell you whether they think that this is where we are going to produce graduates which are worthwhile. And I am happy to say that SUTD has already secured participation from industry heavyweights who are willing to fund internship or to allow these graduates to join their companies for exposure and these include IBM, Google, Huawei, Keppel Corporation and Deutsche Bank. Good brand names. This is the university that has not opened its doors but already you have got good feedback from students, from faculty, and from industry. We do not want to be ahead of ourselves, we do not want to be complacent, but I think these are signs that it is a good start.

Mrs Josephine Teo asked for an assurance and let me give it categorically. No student in Singapore, because he or she lacks the financial means, would be denied an education in any of our institutions. If you are able to enter that institution, we will support you financially and you will be able to complete that institution. Higher fees are for those who can afford it but no student or family that cannot afford it will be denied an education, and I can say that categorically.

Mr Christopher de Souza has also asked for progress in the post-graduate programmes. I am happy to say that we announced last year that we were trying to launch a Dual Masters Degree which means that Masters students will get both a Masters from MIT as well as SUTD, and that indeed has come about. The Dual Masters programme will provide a very valuable articulation pathway for top SUTD undergraduates. Admissions have been launched and MIT and SUTD are on the track to admit their first Dual Masters cohort this year. So we will have a situation where SUTD will, in fact, produce Master graduates before its Bachelor graduates. It is a bit odd but I think that is a reflection of the commitment as well as the respect that MIT has for SUTD.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. – [Dr Ng Eng Hen].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.