Higher education in Singapore

Abstract

Singapore's university system has expanded over the past three decades and has been transformed from an elite system into a mass system, in which over 40% of the age cohort is enrolled in one of the six publicly funded autonomous universities. This chapter illustrates a strong government role in terms of provision, financing, and regulation. In the year 2000, the Ministry of Education began granting greater operating autonomy to publicly funded universities while retaining centralized control over the overall policy direction for the university sector. A decade later, the Ministry introduced new regulations governing the provision of private higher education institutions in response to growing public concerns over the quality of these providers. While Singapore has broadened access to public universities, its government has had to tread a delicate balance between its desire to recruit more international students and faculty and public concern over the perceived competition that this policy poses to locally born students and faculty. Over the past decade, the government has attempted to recast university education as being one step in a process of lifelong learning and to popularize the idea of accessing a university education after individuals have entered the workforce.