"India is one of the six key markets"
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The SESC in Chennai will serve as the coordinating office for promotional activities, says Magdalene Lee, Director, Education Services
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Magdalene Lee
What is the special logic of attracting foreign students to the City-State under the auspices of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB)? How do you enhance the credibility of this mission, given that tourism, a leisure activity, and education, an intellectual pursuit, are two different aspects of life?
The development of Singapore as an education hub is a multi-agency effort, led by the Singapore Economic Development Board, in partnership with the Ministry of Education. STB and SPRING.
STB was assigned the role of international student attraction, as it has over the years built up expertise in marketing Singapore internationally as a leisure and business destination. It has also in place a ready and extensive network of offices in target-markets that can be leveraged to facilitate its education-promotion efforts. There are also market operatives within [STB's] network of travel-industry partners that it can leverage to cultivate segments of the education market that are more leisure/business-based. Synergies aside, STB also recognises that a distinct set of strategies and approaches would have to be adopted. To this end, an Education Services Division was established [within STB] in 2003. Dedicated teams have similarly been set up in key regional centres.
Marketing and promotion of education [with the City-State as the hub] is also done under the auspices of the `Singapore Education' brand, which is also the umbrella brand under which quality institutions and service-providers, supported by STB, band together when promoting themselves overseas.
Singapore Education Services Centres (SESCs) have also been set up both in Singapore and in-market. The first of these was opened in Singapore in 2005. India will see the opening of its first SESC in Chennai in the latter part of this year.
Your progress card, in broad terms, since the launch of this mission?
[The] efforts have contributed to an increase in the number of students pursuing long-term education in Singapore from some 57,000 in 2002 to over 70,000 in 2005. This puts us firmly on the road to achieving our target of 150,000 international students by 2015.
In 2003, three markets — China, Indonesia, and Malaysia — dominated the international student-mix [in Singapore]. Today, this dominance has been moderated, with strong growth coming from five other new markets — India, Vietnam, Myanmar, South Korea, and Thailand. The mix is more exciting in our institutes of higher learning, where some 20 per cent of the student population come from a swathe of 120 countries, including the U.S., the U.K., and Europe.
What do you hope to achieve by setting up a study centre in Chennai at this time?
India is one of the six key markets for Singapore Education. Hence, it is imperative that effective channels of information be established. The SESC in Chennai will serve as the coordinating office for marketing and promotional activities and [will] be the primary information centre for Singapore Education in India. Established and managed by STB, it will be a one-stop information centre for students, a resource centre for Singapore Education-related enquiries on study opportunities in Singapore and pre-departure orientation programmes.
As India is a knowledge-based society, what is Singapore's strategy to project itself as an attractive alternative to the United States [in being] a destination for higher studies?
Singapore's value-proposition for international students combines quality education with an environment that offers unique opportunities for a flying start to a brilliant career. It offers world-class education at affordable costs. Students have the advantage of being able to study at some of the world's leading institutions at a fraction of what it would have cost in the U.K. and the U.S. due to the comparatively lower cost of living.
Located in the heart of Asia, surrounded by the world's fastest-growing economies, studying in Singapore also enables students to be plugged, first hand, into the pulse of high-end corporate business, whilst imbibing the academic rigour from the best of global institutions.
Here, institutes of higher learning work collaboratively with businesses here and the [South-East Asian] region via numerous research and internship programmes. With over 9,000 multinational companies, students can look to an enriching learning experience and an opportunity to gain a foothold in many prestigious organisations.
Work-study privileges are available to students enrolled in any of our institutes of higher learning. So, students get an opportunity to be exposed to working in one of the world's top financial centres [as also a] sea-and-air hub. Singapore offers a safe, friendly, and tolerant environment for people of all nationalities and religious affiliations.
P.S. SURYANARAYANA
Education in Singapore
