UNIVERSITIES (MISCELLANEOUS AMENDMENTS) BILL

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UNIVERSITIES (MISCELLANEOUS AMENDMENTS) BILL: Order for Second Reading read.

4.47 pm

The Minister for Education (Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam): Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The Bill before this House seeks to amend the Universities (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill to allow the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to have borrowing powers and to invest their money as they think fit. The Bill will also enable NUS to set up the NUS High School of Mathematics and Science.

Universities' borrowing and investment powers

Sir, the amendments will allow NUS and NTU to be given greater autonomy in the sourcing and use of funds. The current NUS Act and the NTU Act do not have explicit provisions for the two universities to borrow. It is essential that they have the powers to do so. It will enable them to make more efficient use of capital and to internalise their cost of capital for development projects. This is also as envisaged in the Ministry of Finance's framework for debt-financing for all statutory boards, which was

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implemented with effect from 1st September 2004. Under this framework, statutory boards are expected to take loans to partially finance their capital projects.

Further, the universities have to reap good returns from their monies through prudent investment. The income from their investments will, over time, be an additional source of revenue for the universities. However, currently, the NUS Act is silent on the investment power of NUS. While NTU has a clause in its Act that enables the university to invest its monies, the clause, as it stands, differs from the standard clause required by MOF. The amended investment clause brings NTU in line with the standardised investment clauses for all statutory boards.

There is therefore a need to amend the two universities' Acts to allow the universities to borrow from the Government and external financial institutions and to invest their monies in such manner as they think fit.

More broadly, the amendments will support moves to provide NUS and NTU with the institutional flexibility that they will need to respond to new opportunities and challenges. To make their next leap in quality, NUS and NTU must be dynamic and forward-looking institutions. They must have the room to differentiate themselves, to play on their respective strengths, to move into new areas of study, and make calculated trade-offs as they allocate their resources, so as to ensure the maximum benefit for their students.

Rationale for setting up the NUS High School of Mathematics and Science

Sir, the amendment of the NUS Act will also empower NUS to set up the NUS High School of Mathematics and Science. The High School will open its doors in

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January 2005 and will offer a six-year education from Secondary One to JC 2. The proposal to set up this school was endorsed by Parliament in November 2002, as part of the recommendations of the Junior College/Upper Secondary Review Committee.

Setting up the NUS High School of Mathematics and Science is part of the broader re-orientation taking place in the education system to provide a greater diversity of pathways, programmes and mix of schools. We have introduced integrated programmes, Specialised Independent Schools, such as the NUS High School, and have opened up to a small, privately-funded school sector. This greater diversity of options and opportunities in the education system will better cater to the different needs and talents of our children, develop more unique strengths, and help us meet the challenges of a more complex and rapidly changing environment.

Specialised Independent Schools, like the NUS High School, will help us to nurture peaks of excellence in diverse areas of study and endeavour. They will offer a different model of education, complementing the strengths of our mainstream school system. The NUS High School of Mathematics and Science will be tailored to the special abilities of students who are highly talented in mathematics and science. Such schools are not new. In the US, specialised schools in mathematics and science, like the Bronx High School, offer an enriched environment and programmes to maximise the potential of their students. These schools have proven to be very successful in nurturing mathematics and science talent.

As a tertiary institution with expertise and resources in the teaching and learning of mathematics and science, NUS is well placed to set up a high school to groom outstanding talents in these areas. It will

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be able to leverage on its reputation and capabilities as a leading research and academic institution to offer a top quality education in the schools sector. Strong specialised schools, like the NUS High School, the Sports School and the planned school of the Arts, will add strength and diversity to the national schools system.

Key provisions of the Bill

Sir, I now move on to the specific amendments to the Act.

Clauses 2 and 3 insert new sections after section 6 of the Nanyang Technological University Act and National University of Singapore Act, which set out the universities' power to borrow from the Government or external financial institutions, and to confer them with powers of investment.

Clause 3 also amends section 5(1) of the National University of Singapore Act to enable NUS to establish institutions to provide education above primary level.

Clause 4 is a savings provision relating to investments made and loans raised by the respective universities before the date of the amendments in the Bill.

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, these amendments will give our universities greater flexibility in the sourcing and use of funds, so that they can be innovative and dynamic institutions. They will be better positioned to meet future challenges in a more competitive landscape, and to establish themselves as leading centres in a knowledge-based world.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, whilst this Bill is titled the

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Universities (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill, I certainly do not think that the amendments proposed are "miscellaneous" in nature, especially the amendment to be made to the NUS Act which allows the university to establish institutions that provide education at above primary levels, and not just solely at the university level.

Sir, this proposed amendment changes our understanding of the fundamental mission and objects of universities as citadels of higher learning, rather than as institutions providing basic education which spans the primary to secondary levels.

This amendment has been made to facilitate the setting up of the NUS High School hailed as the first of its kind in Singapore. According to Minister of State for Education, Mr Chan Soo Sen, the NUS High School is tasked with the special responsibility of providing a stimulating environment for students with exceptional aptitude and interest in mathematics and science.

I understand that the High School is fashioned somewhat like the famous Bronx High School of Science, which is a public high school located in New York City. This school was founded in 1938 and counts five Nobel laureates among its graduates, the most for any secondary school in the world.

Sir, I applaud and strongly support the Education Ministry's recent moves to offer a wider range of options to our students and allow them to develop their talents and passion in specialised schools, such as in the Sports School or the Arts School.

However, I am tempted to ask if indeed the reasons for NUS to establish a specialised high school in mathematics and science which necessitates an

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amendment to its Act, the building of a brand new school costing some $28 million and staff deployment are sufficiently compelling.

Undoubtedly, giving those who are talented and passionate in mathematics and science an opportunity to develop their talents to the fullest and as early as possible is highly desirable. The ability of the new NUS High School to leverage on the comprehensive range of expertise available at the university to nurture and educate these students is also a positive factor.

Nonetheless, I would like to raise three concerns which I hope the Minister can clarify.

Firstly, deviation from core business. The NUS had said previously that one of its primary motivations for mooting this idea is that it is tired of less than inquisitive students passing through its doors and thought that it might be able to do better than mainstream secondary schools at producing students who are better prepared for higher education.

Instead of pouring an inordinate amount of resources, building a new school and having to deploy staff to the school, as an experiment to find out if it can do better at producing independent, thinking and inquisitive students, would it not be better for the NUS to share its ideas with mainstream schools, say, starting with the schools offering through-train programmes?

After all, Bronx Science, from which the initiative for this school might have germinated, is also not directly part of a tertiary institution.

NUS could, if it desires, tie up with selected mainstream schools and allow the school to tap on its staff expertise and facilities to nurture students talented in mathematics and science.

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Sir, I would like to ask the Minister to explain how NUS plans to staff its High School. How many of its academic staff would it be deploying to the school, either on a part-time or full-time basis? How would this impact the university's staff strength and resources and teaching programmes?

Would the university, which is still striving to establish itself as a top research university, not be stretching its resources too thinly and diluting its attention and effort by venturing into what conventional wisdom would certainly view as a non-core business, ie, running a high school?

Secondly, the university is already in the midst of implementing numerous changes. Sir, resulting from the last review of the universities' admissions system and curriculum, it would seem that the universities, including the NUS, are still in the midst of implementing the recommendations made, including how students are assessed for admissions, what courses to offer and the curriculum of different courses to make them more broad-based.

Moreover, the universities are likely to be also involved in the current review of university fees and subsidies. Given all these on-going changes, would not the setting up of a high school by the NUS at this point in time be a diversion of its attention away from the more pressing and important tasks required of its primary calling?

Thirdly, the relevance of the teaching capabilities and experience of NUS lecturers. Moreover, unlike mainstream primary and secondary school and junior college teachers, NUS lecturers would generally not have undergone formal training to become teachers. Would the Minister not agree that university lecturers may not be properly equipped to teach

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secondary school and junior college students?

At the university, there is very little teaching, as students who attend universities have gone through basic education, are older and assumed to be more matured and independent to do their own research. However, the level of maturity and independence of the high school students and thus their need for guidance and teaching would be vastly different, even if they are highly gifted in some areas.

Sir, I do not dispute that having more specialised schools to cater to the different talents and needs of our students would greatly enrich the education landscape. Moreover, it is also undeniable that the NUS High School could benefit from tapping on the university's resources.

Nonetheless, I am concerned with the appropriateness and effectiveness of allowing NUS to establish the High School for Mathematics and Science as, among others, this is clearly a departure from its core business.

Sir, I would urge the Ministry and the NUS to study the concerns raised and take steps to mitigate these issues.

With these caveats, Sir, I support the Bill.

Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Sir, I thank Dr Amy Khor for her support for the Bill and useful comments and questions. I can understand her concerns over whether running a high school is a deviation from the core business of NUS, and whether it will detract from it providing a university education that is the best that it can be. First, let me say that the idea of a High School having strong affiliations with a university is not a unique one. It has been working well in a number of countries. In the US, the

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University of Chicago Laboratory Schools are good examples. In fact, they cater to students all the way from nursery up to High School, but the focus is principally on the High School level. Many of the High School students take classes at the University of Chicago, and get supervised or mentored in their research by world renowned professors. Another good example is the Hunter School, which is affiliated to City University of New York. Again, you have students who are, through the affiliation, able to receive an education that challenges them. These are intellectually gifted students typically. The students are allowed to take courses at either Hunter College, which is part of the City University of New York, or Columbia University.

In China, there are several top schools with strong links to the universities. I myself have had the benefit of visiting and talking to people at several such schools, affiliated to top universities in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. They are all highly regarded and their students clearly benefiting from the links that they provide with the universities. For example, in Fudan University Affiliated Middle School, students take university level Mathematics courses. And the school also invites university professors to teach a class once a week and whenever there are interesting new topics that should be covered in the curriculum. The education experience and environment challenges the students in these schools, many of whom end up qualifying for top universities, not just in China but in the US and elsewhere.

Another good example is the Peking University Affiliated High School. The students are free to attend classes at Beida and to do research at the university. And, likewise, the students achieve high standards of excellence and are actively

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sought after by universities around the world.

In most of these schools, I should add that the work done by the students in the High School as well as when they take undergraduate modules by sitting in classes at the university is given credit when they finally go on to university. They are allowed to accumulate credits while at High School. And this again adds to the premium attached to these High Schools.

How far the university goes in its involvement with the High School varies. In the case of the teaching universities - or the Normal Universities as they are called in China - it is typically a closer involvement. For some other universities, the universities are involved in the governance of the school, typically have the principal seconded from the university to the school, but they do not provide a large number of staffing for the school.

If I may give you another example, at the Number Two Secondary School attached to East China Normal University - the top teaching university in Shanghai - there is a close relationship between the school and the university which allows the university to play a prominent role both in the management as well as teaching in the school. The university appoints both the principal and the vice-principal, and some of the university staff members are deployed to the school to teach and to help to develop the curriculum.

In the case of the NUS High School, NUS will be actively supporting and taking a close interest in the school but will not be deploying any large amount of faculty resources to the school. It will not deviate from its core business of providing a university education. The university is very clear about that, and MOE is very clear about that.

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Let me elaborate a little. First, in the area of governance and personnel to run the school. The school board will be chaired by Mr Wee Heng Tin, former Director-General of Education. This will be once the School Board is appointed, which is after the NUS High School gets its legal status. The principal of the School, Professor Lai Yee Hing, is on secondment from NUS Science Faculty. The Assistant Principal, Dr Roland Su, has been assigned to the NUS High School but he will be joining the school as direct staff once the school gets its legal status. He is actually making a switch to become part of the direct staff of the school. Teaching staff, about 25, are recruited principally from the Government teaching service and from the private sector. Initially, it would be more from the Government. Over time, I think they will also recruit a fair number from the private sector. They will, in the first instance, have one teaching assistant from NUS. Over time, there could be a few more. And I would add, in response to Dr Amy Khor's specific question, that it is not necessary for all the teachers to be trained for teaching in the same way that our school teachers in our mainstream are trained. Not all of them will need to be NIE-trained. If you look at top schools abroad, particularly those that are engaged in something like developing special talents in Mathematics and Science, not all their teachers are trained at teaching colleges. Some of them are just people with a passion for the subject and who have a way of reaching out to bright young talent. It is for the school to interview them and decide if they have got the attributes that meet its needs.

So I have covered governance and personnel. Second is the issue of curriculum and examination. I think there again NUS can provide valuable support for the school without over-extending itself. It is an area where NUS can add value, formulating a new curriculum and one that leads on to a new qualification -

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the NUS High School Diploma. The school will be having quite a different structure of curriculum compared to a normal school. It will have a modular system of core and elective subjects. And the curriculum will be accredited by the NUS Board of Undergraduate Studies. The NUS High School will also allow for new modes of assessment, new types of examination as well as other forms of assessment, besides examination, and these will be scrutinised by its Academic Assessment Committee. This committee will ensure that the academic standards of the NUS High School are calibrated to the admission requirements of NUS itself as well as to that of other top universities in the world.

Thirdly, another form of engagement between the university and High School, is that some of the students in the High School will be able to take undergraduate modules at NUS. Students will be mentored in their research work by NUS faculty members who will point them in the direction of new developments, excite their interest and seek to develop them to the fullest.

As far as infrastructure goes, it is a stand-alone school, but it will be able to tap on some of the NUS' resources, particularly its library e-resources and its IT resources. I should add that MOE will support the High School, just like it supports other independent schools. We have paid for the same proportion of the development cost of setting up the new school as we would do for any other independent school. And we will continue to provide annual capitation grants to the school on the same basis as the other independent schools.

The NUS High School is an innovation in our school system. It breaks new ground. The involvement of a university for the first time in the High School on a more than cursory basis will be a new model. It will allow for new curriculum, for articulation of a High School

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curriculum with a university curriculum, for flexible use of university faculty resources without detracting from their core mission of teaching university students well. It will ultimately be a model that is a win-win for the school system and for NUS.

It does not preclude and, in fact, does not displace the continuing efforts by research institutions in Singapore under A*STAR, our other universities and NUS itself from continuing to engage with our secondary schools and JCs - giving talks, mentoring students, and so on and so forth. But this new school goes beyond that.

The NUS High School is part of a broader reorientation that is taking place in our school system to provide more diverse pathways to better meet the needs of students with exceptional talents and different talents. So we set up the Sports School because we have some students who are outstanding in sports and they need a different curriculum, different ways of organising the school, different time-tabling arrangements, even different ways of arranging their classes. Here, we have students who are very strong in Mathematics and Science who should not be constrained and should be given not just a bit more than the usual model of education. They should be given a different model of education, not the regular school curriculum - new framework, new orientation, teachers with a special passion for the subject. And the link between the university and the High School is, I think, a very promising one for both NUS and the NUS High School.

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have confidence that with NUS providing its support in the area of Mathematics and Science teaching and learning to NUS High School, our students who are

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talented in Mathematics and Science would soon have a school offering a highly stimulating and unique learning environment - one that is able to leverage on NUS' expertise and reputation and that is able to capitalise on the students' talents and passion. Singapore will gain from developing their talents to the fullest.

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. - [Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam].

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