Background Story

The fourth university will be located in Upper Changi Road on land which was set aside for the aborted University of New South Wales Asia project.

It will also occupy two sites across the road with a total land area of 23ha.

Classes will start in 2011 at an undisclosed temporary location.

It will move to its permanent home in 2013.

The university will offer courses in one or two of the three disciplines identified for it: engineering and applied science, business and IT, and design and architecture.

The new university will emphasise entrepreneurship and inter-disciplinary learning.

The initial intake will be 500 students. Enrolment will grow to take in 2,000 to 2,500 students a year and the university will have an eventual enrolment of 10,000 to 12,000 undergraduates.

This will increase the number of university places in Singapore to 30 per cent of each year's cohort by 2015, up from the current 25 per cent.

This means another 2,400 places to be equally divided among polytechnic, graduate

BEST OF EAST AND WEST

'Students of the new university would benefit from the best offerings of the East as well as the West, and experience a truly global education. It would give the new university a distinctive character.' - An MOE spokesman