UniSIM to become Singapore's sixth autonomous university by next year

It will also house the city's third law school.

SIM University (UniSIM) has been earmarked to become the city's sixth autonomous university (AU) as the government beefs up efforts to increase the number of publicly funded universities here.

The announcement was made by Acting Education Minister (Higher Education and Skills) Ong Ye Kung during the university's convocation ceremony yesterday.

 According to Ong, UniSIM will be a unique Singapore university, focusing on applied learning, in the domain of social sciences.

As an AU, UniSIM will focus on applied education, targeted at both students and adult learners.

Just as SIT will focus on applied programmes in Science, Technology and Engineering, UniSIM will focus on social sciences, and preparing students for socially-related careers. This will include social work, human resource, psychology, early childhood education, and also law, focusing on family and criminal law, he said.

Ong added that the university will retain limited offering in other areas such as accountancy, business and engineering.

According to Ong the government has worked with UniSIM over the years UniSIM to expand its offerings, including part-time programmes, new full-time applied degree programmes, and more recently, the hosting of Singapore’s third law school, which will see its first intake in January next year.