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Education hub in Singapore
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If you've ever felt tired of a long commute to school, meet John LaVacca. Every six weeks for two years, the American executive would fly from Australia to Singapore for a week of classes.
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If you've ever felt tired of a long commute to school, meet John LaVacca. Every six weeks for two years, the American executive would fly from Australia to Singapore for a week of classes at the Asia campus of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. (来源：英语麦当劳 http://www.EnglishCN.com)
LaVacca, an Asia-Pacific manager at International Business Machines Corp (IBM) based in Melbourne, was not put off by the nine-hour flight, often spending the time cramming for exams. "It made the flight pass very quickly," the 44-year-old says.
Singapore's government is pouring millions of dollars into creating an education hub in Asia, hoping to transform both its economy and identity. Luring more visitors like LaVacca is a big part of that strategy.
The government expects education services to generate about 5 percent of gross domestic product -- the total value of the economy -- in the next decade, up from 3.6 percent now.
It has forecast a tripling in the number of foreign students here to 150,000 by 2012, as a growing middle class in parts of Asia look for schools outside the United States and Europe for their higher education needs, along with business executives.
"This growing education market in Asia is a major economic opportunity for us," Trade Minister George Yeo said in a recent speech. (来源：英语麦当劳－英语杂志 EnglishCN.com)
About 22,000 new jobs will come from local and foreign institutions in the next 10 years, he estimated -- a figure that nearly matches the 26,000 jobs lost in the June quarter as the economy toiled near recession.
GROWING HUB
The University of Chicago, whose Asia campus sits in a restored 121-year-old traditional Chinese estate, is just one of a growing field of offshore institutions in Singapore.
Others include France's INSEAD, Johns Hopkins, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (news - web sites), Stanford University and Technische Universiteit Eindhoven of the Netherlands.
For Singapore's policymakers, the aim is to grab a larger slice of the international education market, worth an estimated $2.2 trillion, according to a government report.
With no natural resources, the trade-reliant country hopes to develop sectors such as education, health care and biomedical sciences as the manufacturers at the heart of its economy come under threat from lower-cost factories in China. (来源：英语麦当劳www.EnglishCN.com)
By promoting official bilingualism for decades -- English and Mandarin Chinese -- Singapore has already carved out a unique role in Southeast Asia as a hub for multinational firms, capitalizing on its educated work force and language skills.
It also has a leg up as a traditionally popular education destination for thousands of Southeast Asian students; most of LaVacca's classmates are drawn from the region. "These students helped to provide a local and broader Asian context to the materials studied," he said.
The government hopes to broaden the mix of international students by diversifying its range of courses -- from art and design to business and engineering -- and by marketing Singapore as a safe, cosmopolitan society.
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