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24/05/2007

University of New South Wales (Asia) in Singapore shuts down

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land and construction costs are both very high; so if everything is counted commercially, then a new campus could very well cost 250M; however, it would be wrong to conclude from this "250M has been wasted now that UNSW pulls out"; presumably the buildings and grounds can be put to some other use; therefore, the cost of the campus itself is less important than what eventually it is used for

news stories are often hurriedly written to meet deadlines, so it is normal to rewrite stories into later versions, sometimes merely to change the shading; this is not necessarily due to censorship or other sinister causes

Posted by: sgsociety.com | 24/05/2007

Hi sgsociety,

I am aware of the processes that stories undergo during the publication phase. That stories change and online versions seem to be more likely to change.

and yes the site that has been prepared could be used at a later date for another purpose. Meanwhile it was an initial investment for a project that has gone belly-up. Until then it is a large investment sitting doing nothing and not 'breaking-even' now or in the foreseeable future. Its a 'liability' not an asset. The 250 million - may also include other issues other than simply land acquisition and development. People and consultants cost money.

So news stories are written quickly and mistakes are made - But did EDB invest 250 million in an investment that has gone wrong? [but might at a future date break-even]

Does Channel News Asia know the sum that the EDB invested in the project with UNSW - and yet claim that the EDB does not want to disclose the amount?

Or has the EDB requested that the amount - although known - not be disclosed to the Singapore taxpayers?

Place your bets....

Posted by: soci | 24/05/2007

singapore already has four universities; both NUS and NTU have many research institutes; the scope for another comprehensive university with research would seem low; I do not know where the over optimistic forecasts came from originally; it was envisaged that UNSW Singapore campus would have 15K students, 10K from overseas injecting 350M a year into the economy; when UNSW proposed a much reduced plan that would not produce the same financial injection, the deal was off

in my view, what is actually needed is a 2-year community college, like a polytechnic but providing liberal arts education, or first two years of university but operated in a much cheaper way, without research facilities, expensive teaching labs, large campus, highly paid professors, etc; graduates can fill positions that require better qualified people than A level but not degrees; they can also transfer credit to universities in an alternative, and cheaper, path to a degree (see http://inccos.com for longer explanation)

Posted by: sgsociety.com | 24/05/2007

I'm not at all surprised to see ths happen, in fact, at the risk of appearing "unkind" I'm a bit tickled.

When the state apparatus gets involved in education, there will be massive failures such as this.

No one in private enterprise will ever allow a farce like this to occur, simply because of the direct effect of the huge losses.

Public institutions firstly have idiots running the show, and secondly, these idiots don't put out their own money on the table to engage in grandiose ventures. Catastrophes are inevitable. Why would they care? They don't lose. The bearers of the losses are the students and the tax payers who fund that bastion of a centrally planned fascist economy — The EDB (The Nazi's and Italian Fascists had similar institutions)

Posted by: Matilah_Singapura | 24/05/2007

After just one semester, University of New South Wales decided to close its Singapore campus, with enrolled students being offered transfers to the Sydney campus with financial assistance to defray the additional cost involved. What happened to cause this drastic decision, which must be highly embarrassing to both the University and its Singapore backer the Economic Development Board? Even now, construction is still proceeding on what was meant to be UNSW Asia's permanent campus at Changi, and it is estimated that the cost of the land and building so far is nearly $250M. While the initial student numbers might have fallen short (150 instead of 300 for the first semester), it is still early days, and the decision meant that UNSW does not believe a desired trend reversal is possible.

For the EDB, the venture is eventually to produce a university of student population 15,000, 2/3 of them from outside Singapore; with tuition around 25K and living cost, 10,000 foreign students would inject $350M into the Singapore economy. When UNSW presented revised plans with target population of a few thousand, the venture was no longer viable from EDB's point of view.

UNSW has a record of being innovative in its development. When the MBA degree was till a relatively obscure concept in the country, it started the Australian Graduate School of Management in 1977, which grew to be the premium MBA school in the region. It set up a consulting company Unisearch to market its expertise and research results to the industry, and developed UNSW Global unit to recruit foreign students, with a Foundation Year that bring them to matriculation standard. These and other worked brought it to the top of the ranking lists of Australian universities, surpassing older but more conservative institutions like Sydney and Melbourne. Thus, it went into the Singapore venture with considerable confidence.

In my view, this confidence has been the cause of the venture's failure. Instead of an incremental approach, starting with a small infrastructure and low cost activities and adding to these as student numbers increased, it invested heavily in a large operational set up, and in regional recruitment campaigns, instead of starting first with a mainly local student population, with much lower cost recruitment efforts as they would be within a single city, and gradually expand outwards. In fact, it met the initial target of 100 local students, but got only 50 of the 200 foreign students it hoped to attract. While many students in China, India and Indonesia might be interested in a degree from UNSW, they might find it more worthwhile to pay a little more and go to the Sydney campus, in order to experience life in Australian.

According to UNSW vice-chancellor Fred Hilmer, who flew in to Singapore to break the news, "This venture was, perhaps in hindsight, a little bit too ambitious ... we didn't have the balance-sheet strength to undertake the venture," he said. "Geography is really important. When a student says, 'I want an Australian degree', what he really means is, 'I want the experience of living in Sydney' … The lesson we learnt is a student comes as much to a geographic destination as they do to a brand of a university," he said. Surely these are things UNSW already knew before starting the venture, but they probably thought the EDB offer of a brand new campus and other support too good to refuse.

I cannot help but to quote Brutus saying to Cassius in "Julius Caesar":

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures

Posted by: sgsociety.com | 25/05/2007

Thaksin robbed at Moscow McDonald's

*
* May 25, 2007

A SUITCASE belonging to deposed Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra containing thousands of dollars and his passport was stolen from a McDonald's restaurant in Moscow, the Bangkok government said today.
The case, which was taken while he was eating in the fast-food diner, also contained legal documents for a lawsuit against members of an anti-corruption body investigating him, according to the Bangkok Post.

A Thai foreign ministry official said Mr Thaksin reported the loss to Russian police and applied for a new passport at the embassy in Moscow.

"We have issued a temporary passport to the former prime minister," he said.

Mr Thaksin's lawyer said the bag contained dollars, pounds and rubles worth up to $US8700 ($10,650).

Mr Thaksin, a self-made billionaire who has remained in self-exile since his government was toppled by the military last September, was in Moscow on Monday to receive an honorary degree from an economic institute when the theft took place.

AFP

Posted by: HAHAHA | 26/05/2007

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(I have too much experience in surgery and clinic)
Yours truly

M.Azemati M.D
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+98 261 441 6106
+98 912 126 0800
email:azemati@mywy.com

Posted by: mansoor azemati | 14/04/2008

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