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play in not only producing highly skilled labour but also, more importantly, new
knowledge and ideas for the future of Singapore economy to build on the Silicon
Valley experience to provide the critical mass of advanced knowledge sources,
including universities, advanced public and corporate research laboratories, venture
capital, entrepreneurial talents, knowledge workers, specialized professional ser-
vices and sophisticated end users (Gopinathan and Lee 2011 ; Wong 2007 ).
Marketization
In this globalization context, market and competition are major elements to be taken
in consideration to plan for the future development of higher education. The concept
of “marketization” aptly illustrates the situation facing most higher education insti-
tutions (Lee and Tan 2002 ; Mok 2000 ; Mok and Tan 2004 ; Tan 1998 ). More empha-
sis is placed on the importance of market relevance when higher education
institutions have to develop their curriculum and pedagogy. Widespread attention is
given to the employability of graduates and how much they earn for they have
become important indicators to demonstrate how well higher education institutions
perform and whether they are responsive to market needs. With more resources
pledged by the Singapore government to fund R&D activities and scientific research
projects, it is expected that higher education institutions have to play a highly stra-
tegic role in reinventing the Singapore economy towards the goals of becoming
more research-intensive, innovative and entrepreneurial. Meanwhile, the Singapore
government, which plays a market accelerationist role, makes use of market forces
to stimulate competition between local and foreign universities not to cure the finan-
cial stringency problem, which is non-existent in the city-state, but improve mana-
gerial efficiency and cost-effectiveness in higher education institutions. This comes
with the diversification of higher education finance to explore alternative or non-
government sources of funding before financial stringency occurs (Lee 2002 ; Mok
2011 ; Mok and Tan 2004 ).
Internationalization
Closely related to the trend of marketization, Singapore’s higher education has been
profoundly affected by another trend of internationalization as noted by scholars like
Daquila ( 2013 ), Lee and Gopinathan ( 2007 ), Mok ( 2008 ), Sidhu ( 2006 , 2009a, b),
Olds ( 2007 ), Olds and Thrift ( 2005 ), Sidhu et al. ( 2011 , 2014 ), Tan ( 2006 ), Toh
( 2012 ), Waring ( 2014 ) and Ziguras ( 2003 ). These scholars’ research focuses on the
“Global Schoolhouse” initiative of the Singapore government’s Economic
Development Board, which launched the World-Class Universities programme in
1998 with an aim to attract at least ten world-class universities, most of which are
research-intensive American institutions (Sidhu et al. 2011 ), to Singapore by the
M.H. Lee