I refer to the article “Local universities to offer 1,000 more places this year” (Straits Times, Mar 28).
1,000 more university places?
It states that “The Education Ministry will open up another 1,000 university places this year, bringing the total number of places at the six universities, including the Singapore Institute of Technology and SIM University to 14,000.
This means the Government will reach the target of providing university places for 30 per cent of an age group a year earlier than planned.
The bulk of the new places announced by Mr Heng will come from the expansion of SIT and UniSIM.
UniSIM in Clementi will add three full-time degrees to its part-time offerings for working adults.”
Now count UniSIM and part-time?
– I undestand that in the past – when counting the availability of university places for Singaporeans – it did not include UniSIM and part-time degree offerings.
If my understanding is correct – why is there this sudden unannounced change?
Wouldn’t it make the numbers look better relative to the past, perhaps with a sudden jump in the availability numbers?
CPF for UniSIM?
By the way, since UniSIM is now counted – will the policy be changed to allow CPF to be used for UniSIM as well, under the CPF Education scheme?
$500m spending on non-citizens in a year?
With the continuace of the policy to have 16% of the first intake reserved for foreigners, plus an unknown number of permanent residents (PRs), and the bulk of graduate students being non-citizens – I estimate that the total spending in a year on non-citizens by way of scholarships from secondary to graduate courses, tuition grant for undergraduates, etc, to be about $500 million.
My estimate is based on the latest Parliamentary replies in this regard, as well as whatever statistics that I have been able to get my hands on and written about recently.
We should conduct a review of our education policy on issues like funding for foreigners, places for Singaporeans, consequential out-of-pocket expenses by Singaporeans who study in private universities locally and overseas, etc.
Moreover, given the above, what is the justification to increase university fees again, when the universities have huge surpluses of hundreds of millions of dollars?
Leong Sze Hian
