Newcastle University

The University’s School of Marine Science and Technology is one of five world-class institutions joining forces with SIT to produce the Singaporean graduates of the future.

Launching 12 months ahead of schedule, SIT will welcome its first 500 students in August, with plans to increase this number to 2,000 full-time polytechnic graduate places by 2015.

Newcastle's Professor Ehsan Mesbahi, Director of NU Marine International, said “This is an exciting development for the University and the School, enabling us to respond to the huge global demand for marine technology graduates with high quality programmes delivered in two locations on opposite sides of the world.

“Newcastle University has a long history of working in South East Asia and Singapore in particular, with many influential alumni in Singapore government, business and industry.”

Newcastle has attracted hundreds of students from countries like Singapore, Greece and China, which have strong shipbuilding and offshore engineering interests, and two years ago teamed up with Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore to launch a degree programme in Naval Architecture.

SIT will be offering marine-technology-focused degree programmes in Marine Engineering, Offshore Engineering and Naval Architecture.

As well as Newcastle, the other partner institutions include the Technical University of Munich, the Culinary Institute of America, and DigiPen Institute of Technology.

Education Minister Ng Eng Hen, who made the announcement in Parliament earlier this month, said the long term plan was to “evolve into a university”.

“SIT's partner institutions have been selected for their high academic standing and strong industry links,” said Dr Ng.