If this comes to pass, Dr Tan said, the university would be offering students 'a truly enriching learning experience that would equip them well to meet the complex demands of a globalised knowledge-based economy'. -- ST PHOTO: CAROLINE CHIA
SINGAPORE could be home to a unique trilateral partnership involving an American and a Chinese university, when the as yet unnamed fourth university starts enrolling students in 2011.
The Education Ministry (MOE) is already talking to various US universities about a partnership to run the new campus in Changi.
It is also considering involving a Chinese university, said Dr Tony Tan, chairman of the International Academic Advisory Panel (IAAP) and the Singapore National Research Foundation yesterday.
If this comes to pass, he said, the university would be offering students 'a truly enriching learning experience that would equip them well to meet the complex demands of a globalised knowledge-based economy'.
Dr Tan, who was addressing a US-China-India conference on innovation in Boston, chairs the IAAP - a panel which is charting directions for Singapore's fourth university.
He pointed out two other 'path-breaking ideas' for the university - its emphasis on cross-disciplinary studies in design, engineering, architecture and business and on working with industry.
The university will open in 2011 with 500 students and grow service 2,000 to 2,500 students per year with an eventual enrolment of between 10,000 and 12,000 undergraduates.
Yesterday, Dr Tan also disclosed that it was possible that the university, which will being by offering both undergraduate and post-graduate programmes concurrently could also be equipped with a major research centre.
Contacted yesterday, an MOE spokesman said: 'The proposed tripartite partnership for the new university with US and China universities would allow the new university to build linkages among growth regions and leverage on the different strengths of the partner universities to develop a world-class curriculum.
'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.'
The spokesman declined to provide names of universities which have been approached as discussions are still ongoing. MOE will provide more information when the details are finalised.
Read the full story in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times.
