SINGAPORE DEGREE CEREMONY (2)
7 July 2000
Vice-Chancellor's Address to the Graduates
Mr Peter Chen, Senior Minister of State for Education
Mr Lim Ho Kee, Vice-Chairman of the Governing Council of the Singapore
Institute of Management
Mr John Yip, Director of SIM
Officers and colleagues from SIM
Professor Ann Floyd and colleagues from the Open University
Graduates and Guests
I begin by bringing you greetings from the Chancellor of the Open University, The Right Honourable Betty Boothroyd, MP, Speaker of the UK’s House of Commons. She would have liked to come and take part in these ceremonies in Singapore but this is a very busy time in the UK Parliament. She sends her greetings to all of you and her congratulations to the graduates. She takes a great interest in the Open University Degree Programme in Singapore and is delighted by its continuing growth and success.
It has been a pleasure for your Director, Mr John Yip and me to meet our graduates this afternoon and to talk to them. We also congratulate you on your success. It is clear that study in the OUDP programme has enhanced you, not just by opening up greater opportunities at work but, even more importantly, in giving you greater confidence and higher aspirations in all aspects of your lives.
The Open University is very proud of its link with the Singapore Institute of Management and, more generally, with your dynamic and energetic country. The Open University Degree Programme that we have built here together has developed in a truly remarkable fashion. We began planning the programme in 1992; in 1994 the first cohort of 918 students began their studies and in 1995 the 822 students who continued into the second year were joined by 1,020 new students. 1998 saw the first students graduate from the programme, 335 of them. This year there are 5,722 students studying in the programme and 569 new graduates whose success we celebrate today. That brings the total number of graduates so far to 1,378.
This rapid rate of growth is a credit to the diligence and enthusiasm of our Singapore students and to the hard work and careful planning of our colleagues in SIM. The Open University is immensely proud to have effectively helped Singapore create a new university of quality and of substantial size at a mere fraction of the cost that would have been incurred if the programme had been designed and offered in traditional ways. I pay a warm tribute to the work of your Director, Mr John Yip and of his predecessor, Professor You, who have led the staff of SIM in adapting the technology and methods of supported open learning to your national context.
Successful partnerships require two-way traffic and we are also proud of the impact of this Singapore programme on the Open University generally. The OU is gradually transforming itself from a rather centralised UK university inot the main hub of an exciting world-wide network of partnerships. This year a new partner joined the network, the United States Open University, whose first students began their study earlier this year.
The United States Open University has an office in Denver, Colorado, which is seven hours behind UK time, which in turn is eight hours behind Singapore time. This gives us all the potential, if we wished to develop it, for these three institutions, SIM, the OU and the USOU, to work together to provide 24-hour tutorial and administrative services to students anywhere in the world without the staff of any of our institutions having to work much outside their normal day.
Such a vision is some way off but now Singapore’s Open University Degree Program is well established we can think together about the next steps. There is great synergy between the way you are developing the e-world in Singapore and our pioneering work at the Open University as the first large scale e-university. By combining our efforts we could become the leading global electronic university for the new economy.
We admire enormously what you are doing in Singapore to become the first e-nation. It has been a special pleasure to meet education minister Peter Chen today after seeing him quoted in The Economist newspaper last week. I cannot do better than to repeat to you what he said there:
“The development of electronic public services is critical to setting the pace in proliferating the use of IT and creating an IT-savvy culture in Singapore. It will enhance the ability of the public to be increasingly familiar and comfortable with IT, which has become a critical component in the knowledge economy. Our people’s openness and skill with IT can offer a distinctive competitive edge to Singapore.”
We at the Open University subscribe heartily to those sentiments, in particular the importance of providing electronic public services. I much admire the way you have developed the Singapore ONE network, your round-the-clock GeBIZ centre for government business dealings, your eCitizen centre with its concept of the Education Town and your pilot of the Learning Village.
All these Singaporean firsts serve as inspirations to the UK government as it develops its UK Online portal. Meanwhile, the Open University is leading the British public sector into the e-world. This year we have some 150,000 people working with the Open University online. They consist of 80,000 students in our degree programmes and more than 70,000 schoolteachers who are finding out how to use computers effectively to teach their own subjects through our Learning Schools Programme.
I imagine that a population of 150,000 students online makes the Open University the largest university in cyberspace but we consider that is only a beginning. At the moment we are launched on an aggressive programme of investment and development to consolidate our status as the leading e-university. This means e-curricula, e-student support, e-assessment, e-administration, and e-marketing.
Like Singapore – and unlike many other players in the e-world – we are determined, in Mr Chen’s words, to develop public electronic services and to ensure that all students, from whatever background, can reap the advantages of the online world. That is why I think that the partnership between the Open University and Singapore through the Singapore Institute of Management has such global promise.
That is a vision of the future for out institutions but this is the present and today is your day as graduates. I congratulate on your success. You have achieved a degree of quality by a very difficult route. What you have learned and how you have learned it will yield many benefits for you in the years ahead.
But you would be the first to acknowledge that you have not done this alone. There will be people you wish to thank. It is wonderful to greet so many families, relatives and friends who are here with us today.
Success in the Open University Degree Programme depends on the tolerance and understanding of others. You all know the impact of OUDP study on family and social life. No doubt you are now benefiting from some of the extra time that your graduate has for family matters and household chores. I thank you all for supporting the graduate through their studies and I now ask the graduates to show their thanks to you with a round of applause.
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I also have a ‘thank you’. Professor Ann Floyd, who officiated for the Open University at this morning’s ceremony, will step down as the OU’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the end of this month. During her time in office she has played a central role in developing the OUDP here and, in particular, in bringing the academic staff of SIM and the OU together for curriculum planning. Another meeting is taking place this week and I am delighted that so many of my Open University colleagues have come to Singapore for it.
The good news is that in her new role Professor Floyd will have full-time responsibility for strengthening our international academic partnerships so her good work with our colleagues at SIM will continue with greater intensity.
I know that there are other thanks that you as graduates would like to express. You know how deeply the tutors and staff tutors of SIM are committed to their students. I expect there were moments for each of today’s graduates when their tutor’s encouragement was crucial to the successful continuation of your studies.
Let's show our appreciation for your tutors, for all the OUDP staff at SIM, and for the Open University staff here today who have helped and inspired you during your time as students and made possible the degrees we celebrate today. Let’s give them all a round of applause.
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I hope you will keep in touch with your University as it continues to develop and expand around the world. I encourage you to join the Association of Open University Graduates and I remind you that you are automatically members of the Alumni Association - The OU LINK. Please try out the Alumni Website, where you can log your particular interests and receive regular personal email updates on new services and current events.
I thank you for studying in the Open University Degree Programme with the Singapore Institute of Management. I congratulate you on completing the programme successfully and I wish you continued success in the future wherever it leads you.