The Straits Times, Apr 23, 1997
THE Singapore Institute of Management (SIM), a private professional body which offers degree and diploma courses, will be turned into a private university specialising in finance and business courses, Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan announced yesterday.
It will be free to set its own fees and courses but can ask for government support in the form of land and grants.
Dr Tan made the announcement when he addressed the institute's Annual General Meeting (AGM) yesterday. The AGM later adopted a resolution calling on the institute to expand its finance and business courses on its way to becoming a university eventually.
A new governing council made up of prominent businessmen and senior education officials was also elected.
The council, chaired by Mr Ho Kwon Ping, president of Wah Chang International Corporation, will draw up the plan to turn the institute into a private university.
To achieve this, an academic board, headed by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) President Cham Tao Soon, has been set up to oversee academic matters and streamline courses at the institute. Helping it review the institute's programmes will be a task force, headed by Professor Tan Teck Meng, Dean of the School of Accountancy and Business at NTU.
At the end of last year, the institute had about 11,000 students enrolled in its mostly part-time programmes, which range from certificate to undergraduate to doctoral level.
It operates from four different places at Clementi, Upper Thomson and Paterson roads and Namly Avenue. A new Clementi campus is being built.
In his speech yesterday, Dr Tan said developing SIM into a private university will be a "quantum leap" in the institute's 33-year history and help meet the needs of Singaporeans for tertiary education in the next century.
He said the eagerness of workers to upgrade themselves academically and to acquire new skills and knowledge is Singapore's significant strength and the Government will support their efforts.
But the new university will be different from NUS and NTU, as the private sector will be involved actively in determining what type of degrees or courses SIM should run.
The Government will probably receive the SIM plans on becoming a university by the end of the year after the academic board and task force have done their work.
He added that going by the example of NTU, which started as Nanyang Technological Institute in 1981, it might be about 10 years before the new university comes into being.
Copyright © 1998 Singapore Press Holdings. All Rights Reserved.
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