SINGAPORE — Singapore’s third law school — which will have a strong applied curriculum and a focus on criminal and matrimonial law — will be located at the SIM University (UniSIM), Education Minister Heng Swee Keat announced this morning (Oct 16).

The Ministry of Law is currently working with UniSIM to develop the third law school’s programmes in consultation with the legal industry, Mr Heng added.

He was speaking at the opening session of UniSIM’s Convocation Ceremony at SIM Headquarters.

In May, the Government accepted the recommendations of the Fourth Committee of the Supply of Lawyers to establish a new law school with a focus on training lawyers keen to practice criminal law and matrimonial law, to meet the increasing need for such lawyers.

“It is envisaged that this third law school will have a strong applied curriculum. Whilst it will provide a general law degree, there will be a strong focus on the specialist practice areas of criminal and matrimonial law,” Mr Heng said.

He added that UniSIM was selected for “its strong track record in the provision of degree programmes for mature individuals, and its complementary offerings in the social sciences and humanities”.

In his speech, Mr Heng also announced that UniSIM and the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) will launch their full-time applied degree programmes next year.

The new applied learning programmes will see students experience a structured work attachment, which will “generally be longer and will offer a deeper immersion than current attachment programmes at our universities”, said Mr Heng.

Each institution will offer up to 200 places for a start. SIT will launch programmes in engineering, information communications technology and accountancy, while UniSIM will offer programmes in accountancy, finance and marketing.

Both institutions will release further details on their new programmes in the coming week.

In August last year, the Government accepted the recommendations of the Committee on the University Education Pathways Beyond 2015 (CUEP) to increase the subsidised pre-employment university cohort participation rate to 40 per cent by 2020, and to develop a new applied degree pathway through which the majority of these places would be provided.