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GIVING ITS SIDE: The EDB has written to Prof Hilmer to refute his claim that his salvage plan for UNSW Asia was rejected by the board. -- ST PHOTO: STEPHANIE YEOW
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THE Economic Development Board (EDB) has refuted a claim by the chief of an Australian university that its Asian branch campus here failed because the board scuppered his proposed deal to save it.
The EDB wrote to Professor Fred Hilmer of the Sydney-based University of New South Wales (UNSW) to take issue with comments he made in The Australian newspaper published on Wednesday.
He told the paper he had proposed a salvage plan for UNSW Asia, which the EDB rejected at the 11th hour.
He was also quoted as having said: 'It was for a smaller, slower start-up with less research, certainly in the early years.'
UNSW announced the closure of UNSW Asia on May 23, claiming that its student intake had fallen far too short of its target.
Prof Hilmer had flown to Singapore to announce the closure at a press conference, during which he said he was not prepared to pour millions of dollars into the campus while waiting for it to take off.
But in his latest comments in the Australian media, he 'sought to lay the blame for the closure' on the EDB, said the board in its letter, which was released to the Singapore media.
Giving its side of the story, the EDB revealed that Prof Hilmer had wanted to renegotiate the support package as soon as he took over as vice-chancellor in the middle of last year.
The board agreed by 'significantly' increasing its support package, although enrolment targets remained about the same - which was for the university to have 10,000 students in 2015 and 15,000 a few years later.
The EDB said that when Prof Hilmer signed the new agreement in December last year, he agreed to speed up the development of UNSW Asia's campus in Changi and add more research and development activities.
But he was back at the bargaining table just three months later, after the intake met only half the target enrolment of 300.
This time around, he proposed scaling enrolment down to 2,000 students by 2016 - 8,000 fewer than the original target.
The EDB said he also offered no assurance that the Changi campus would be built, or even that it would be built on a smaller scale.
This was despite the board's agreeing to wait another two years for UNSW to decide on the fate of its Changi campus, which was to have replaced its temporary Kay Siang Road one.
The board had also meanwhile agreed to continue with the same grants and loan package, with no further increases.
The EDB said that contrary to the impression that Prof Hilmer had given - that all that was involved was a slower rate of increase in enrolment - he was actually proposing a much smaller enrolment, even for the longer term.
The board told him that, because this was a matter of interest to the Singapore public, it would send a copy of its letter to the Singapore media.
Dr Lily Neo, who heads the Government Parliamentary Committee for Education, noted that Prof Hilmer's revised enrolment figure showed a lack of commitment from UNSW.
To date, the EDB has declined to reveal how much it has given UNSW in grants and loans. But it has been reported that it gave UNSW some $17.3 million last year.
The university was also given a loan facility of $156.8 million to develop its Changi campus by the EDB and the Australia and New Zealand Bank. So far, $21 million had been drawn down.
sandra@sph.com.sg
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