An artist's impression of the Curtin University hostels. The campus is to be located in the Balestier Road area. -- PHOTO: CURTIN UNIVERSITY

AUSTRALIA'S Curtin University of Technology, a name already popular with many Singaporeans, will set up a campus here by the end of this year.

It will offer business degrees for a start and eventually expand to include mass communications, nursing, engineering and design modules.

The campus, to be located at a former Institute of Technical Education at Jalan Rajah, in the Balestier Road area, will be run by global education services company, Navitas, which will pump in $40 million to get it up and running by November.

It will be the university's second campus outside Australia, with the first in Sarawak, Malaysia.

Curtin's main campus is in Perth but it has another in Sydney, also managed by Navitas.

Curtin's Vice-Chancellor Professor Jeanette Hacket told The Straits Times on Wednesday that the university's priority is to ensure that academic standards are maintained.

'We have a very strict policy on how our courses are conducted, on recruitment of staff and ensuring they get the training needed, and criteria for selection of students,' she said.

Curtin currently has 900 students in Singapore, studying at the Singapore Human Resources Institute, Marketing Institute of Singapore and the Singapore Institute of Materials Management.

These students will eventually move to the new campus.

The campus will have a library, computer and sporting facilities, among other amenities,

Navitas also plans to build student hostels in future.

Mr Rod Jones, executive director of Navitas, said he is confident that the campus will attract students from around the region, for instance, India, China, Vietnam and Thailand.