SINGAPORE: In an effort to continue to expand and diversify Singapore's university system, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the government is implementing a further plan to create more opportunities within the education sector. Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony of the Yale-National University of Singapore (NUS) College, the prime minister said the country's first residential liberal arts college “presented a new offering in Singapore's higher education landscape,” local daily The Straits Times reported on Saturday. He said Singapore will continue to look for and bolster diversify in the university sector “not by doing more of the same, but by diversifying the tertiary landscape.” Singapore has three public universities, with a fourth scheduled to open later this year. It also has a number of private institutions of higher education that provide vocational training. The government is also studying a new pathway for applied degrees, Lee said. The first batch of Yale-NUS students will commence classes from August 2013. Pericles Lewis, president of the Yale-NUS College who took office on July 1, said at the ceremony that the college will become the cradle of leadership. Lewis, who will stay on campus with his family, said he “looked forward to extending interaction beyond the classroom to create a unified cohesive culture.” The college will be at the University Town of the NUS before the new campus officially opens in 2015.
