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Science, maths skills critical to Singapore's future: PM Lee

SINGAPORE — A strong foundation of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) was what underpinned Singapore’s development over the past 50 years, and continued capabilities in these areas are needed to create a vibrant, exciting and advanced society.

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SINGAPORE — A strong foundation of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) was what underpinned Singapore’s development over the past 50 years, and continued capabilities in these areas are needed to create a vibrant, exciting and advanced society.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong stressed the importance of STEM at today’s (May 8) opening of the Singa­pore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) campus in Changi.

He pointed out that as a small country, the Republic will always have constraints that need to be overcome through ingenuity and technology. New ways of creating space and boosting productivity in a shrinking workforce are just a few of such instances.

But interest in STEM courses and jobs has taken a back seat, partly because graduates are drawn to other in-demand jobs and students growing up in a more developed economy are taking science and technology for granted and pursuing other areas, said Mr Lee.

This trend has permeated even the Cabinet; many younger ministers studied economics and the social sciences, while their older counterparts mostly had degrees in engineering or science.

At the same time, Mr Lee observed that the trend is showing signs of reversing, with the SUTD’s growing enrolment an indication that STEM courses and jobs are becoming attractive again.

“We need a balance — we need more engineers to be a rounded, complete society, but we must not neglect the hard sciences in the pursuit of our higher satisfactions in life,” said Mr Lee, who posted a Sudoku solver programme online to show younger people that “tech is cool”.

In an educational system designed to offer students various options to cater for their interests, the SUTD has come as an additional and important pathway to champion science and technology.

From last December to this January, faculty and students started moving to the new campus, a 23ha site near Changi Business Park. There are four academic blocks, which can hold 3,100 faculty, staff and students, and five residential blocks to accommodate 1,400.

Other facilities in the campus include a fabrication laboratory, research centres, an indoor sports complex and four antique Chinese buildings donated by movie star Jackie Chan.

Speaking to TODAY, SUTD president Thomas Magnati said the campus was designed to support the university’s multidisciplinary curriculum. Instead of buildings and students grouped according to their disciplines, the grounds are intended to facilitate the flow of people and ideas.

“We mix up the faculty office so they’re sitting with different disciplines together. So in that sense, the campus helps fuel interdisciplinary interaction and makes us bump into one another,” said Professor Magnati.

“This is going to foster all kinds of great interaction and ideas that you wouldn’t get if they were all isolated.”

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