1,000 more University Places for Singaporeans this Year Education Minister's Report

Posted on 12 May 2014 Views ( 1955 )

SINGAPORE: There will be 1,000 more University places for Singaporeans this year. This will raise the count to 14,000 Universities.

In a Facebook post on Friday, Education Minister Heng Swee Keat congratulated the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) on attaining its autonomous university status.

In expansion of the university sector, the bulk coming from SIT and the new full-time degree programmes at UniSIM.

"This year, 30 per cent of our students can be admitted to publicly-funded degree programmes. This is double than in 1990 and the highest number ever.

We planned to reach this target by 2015, but we are able to reach it by 2014 itself, which is a year ahead of our schedule” Mr. Heng added.

As per the government by 2020, 40 per cent of school-going students will be able to have a university education.

Mr. Heng said that it is not just about numbers.

“We want our students to be able to meet the dynamic and rigorous requirements of the programmes, and at the same time, we want them to utilize the best opportunities.

We are increasing our range of higher education landscape, with new teaching approaches, programmes, and institutions” he commented.

He even said "We are offering programs and courses across multiple disciplines from applied to theoretical, from liberal arts to technology, and from business to engineering”.

"UniSIM and SIT” new full-time degree programmes are our recent university offerings, and will integrate classroom application and learning in structured work attachments to better prepare students who enjoy hands-on learning for the challenging careers ahead in the working world,” he added.

Mr. Heng assured that the government will make sure that Singaporeans who have qualified for a place in institutes of higher learning can continue a post-secondary education even though their families have financial difficulties.

Earlier this month, he had announced that the fundraising will be enhanced in order to reach out to more students who are lower – and middle-income households.

Mr. Heng said: "About 120,000 Singaporean students are going to benefit from the enhanced bursaries.

"In some cases, like in Institute of Technical Education (ITE), the bursaries provide you some daily expenses apart from the fee.”

In other cases, the bursaries cover up to 80 percent of polytechnic fees for students from lower income families.