© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 225
J. Jung et al. (eds.), Researching Higher Education in Asia, Higher Education in
Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4989-7_13
Chapter 13
Researching Higher Education in “Asia’s
Global Education Hub”: Major Themes
in Singapore
Michael H. Lee
Abstract Higher education studies as a field of academic research have become
more developed and important in Singapore since the 1980s when the city-state
placed more emphasis on reforming and restructuring its higher education sector to
achieve the status of “Asia’s global education hub”. The past few decades witnessed
a more significant growth of the research work and literature on higher education in
Singapore, which have covered several trends of development and major issues aris-
ing from changes facing the higher education system in Singapore. With reference
to the research of higher education studies in Singapore over the past three decades,
this chapter probes into major characteristics, trends and issues closely related to
higher education development in Singapore, which are most appropriately repre-
sented by such themes as “centralized decentralization”, entrepreneurialization,
globalization, internationalization, marketization and massification. It also exam-
ines the factors affecting the development of higher education in Singapore. It is
believed that important lessons can be drawn from Singapore’s experience of higher
education development for other countries, no matter they are small or large, devel-
oping or developed, to develop their higher education systems in order to strive for
survival in a highly competitive global market.
Introduction
One of the most important achievements accomplished by Singapore over the past
50 years since her independence in 1965, as what this city-state’s first Prime Minister
Lee Kuan Yew claimed, is its successful transformation from being a Third World
ex-British colony to a First World independent nation in Asia (Lee 2000 ). With
manpower as the only resource which Singapore can rely on for long-term
M.H. Lee (*)
Department of History, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, Hong Kong
e-mail: [email protected]