SCHEDULED UNIVERSITIES FOR LAW COURSES IN UNITED KINGDOM (Criteria for selection and recognition)

Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon asked the Minister for Law what criteria were used in the selection and recognition of the 15 scheduled universities in the United Kingdom for students wishing to study law overseas.

The Minister for Law (Prof. S. Jayakumar): Mr Speaker, Sir, the Committee on the Supply of Lawyers took into account the following factors:

(a) The admission standards, curricula, research records, student population, staff and other factors such as library resources, areas of specialisation and distribution of class honours.

(b) Whether the university is a traditional source for the training of Singapore law students. In the past three years, these 15 universities produced more than 50% of the total number of law graduates from Singapore.

Sir, the Committee also considered that the courses offered by the university should, as a rule, have pure law subjects and the courses which are opened to "A" level holders should at least be 3-year full-time courses.

Finally, Sir, I believe the Member is aware that these recommendations are not retrospective and will not adversely affect students in the universities where they were enroled or were accepted in the universities before the date of the Committee's report.