Researching Higher Education in Asia History, Development and Future

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trends and issues concern the changing relationship between the state and higher
education, the dilemma between expansion and quality and the impacts of global-
ization on higher education development with special reference to three closely
related issues, including marketization, internationalization and entrepreneurializa-
tion, all of which aptly illustrate changes and challenges facing Singapore’s higher
education system. In the following section, it delves into the three most important
factors affecting higher education in Singapore.


Lessons from Singapore’s Experience

Is there any lessons can be learnt from Singapore’s experience of higher education
development as what scholars have been researching over the past few decades?
Unlike other First World countries, higher education in Singapore remains to be
elitist although the participation rate of local universities reached 25 per cent in



  1. A majority of students are studying in polytechnics and Institute of Technical
    Education for postsecondary education in Singapore. Universities mainly cater for
    the best students, and those with outstanding performance would be awarded differ-
    ent kinds of bonded scholarships offered by the government or its affiliated institu-
    tions like the Public Service Commission and Singapore Armed Forces to study in
    top universities overseas (Lee 2011 ). This reflects the generosity of the state to offer
    a certain quantity of scholarships for students every year as a means to retain local
    talents and also recruit as many as foreign talents as possible. Universities, which
    include the ones in Singapore and top universities overseas, are not surprisingly
    considered as elitist institutions to nurture future leaders and elites in Singapore.
    Meanwhile, higher education is well resourced for it is substantially financed by
    the state and public money. Instead of facing the critical problem of financial strin-
    gency as those developed countries have experience in recent years, the Singapore
    government has consistently allocated more funding to the higher education system
    although the city-state was also severely affected by the global economic downturns
    and fluctuations as similar as other developed countries. This reveals an
    extraordinarily strong commitment of the state to develop higher education within a
    relatively short period of time. This is because higher education is regarded as an
    investment for Singapore, where there is no natural resources but only manpower.
    Higher education is clearly aligned to the needs of the local and global economy.
    Apart from financing higher education, the state also commits itself to support R&D
    with heavy investment of public funding in this area. More emphasis has been
    placed on improving Singapore’s international competitiveness in science and tech-
    nology and enhancing its research and development capability to match with the
    other developed and newly developed countries. In view of the need to strengthen
    Singapore’s R&D, higher education institutions are asked to nurture skilled person-
    nel in key technologies who should be developed with innovative and creative skills
    (Tan 2006 ). For Singapore, the strong state’s commitment and its significant finan-
    cial input are indispensable to a relatively rapid growth and development of higher


M.H. Lee
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