16 October 2015

Singapore’s first liberal arts college, Yale-NUS, cannot be a carbon copy of Yale in the United States if it is to succeed, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Monday (Oct 12).

It has to adapt the Yale model to Asia, PM Lee said at the inauguration of the college campus.

While countries in Asia and the United States face similar challenges such as income inequality and wage stagnation, each country has different constraints. Hence, Yale-NUS needs a curriculum and a college ethos that respond to the regional context of Asia.