The country will soon have two more universities, bringing the total up to six.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced at the National Day Rally on Sunday night that both the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) and UniSIM would become universities. SIT will expand places and begin awarding degrees while UniSIM will add full-time programmes.

The schools were chosen because they work closely with industry and focus on applied degrees.

The addition of the two schools is expected to increase the yearly intake of full-time university students by 3,000 per year by 2020. That would mean 40 per cent of each cohort would be able to go to university, up from 27 per cent today.

More details are expected from the Ministry of Education later.