In light of global benchmarking, University President, Rev. Fr. Cristopher C. Maspara, OAR attended an executive programme held at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) last July 2 to July 6.
The University President was one of the 28 university leaders from the Philippines who attended the programme entitled “Transforming Higher Education Leaders through Effective Policy Reforms”.
Rev. Fr. Cristopher Maspara, OAR of the University of San Jose – Recoletos (sixth from left) goes to Singapore with other Filipino education leaders and attends the LKY executive program.
| Photo Courtesy of PEAC
One of the speakers was NUS President Professor Tan Eng Chye who shared his presentation entitled “Becoming a Top University in Asia: Lessons from NUS”. He discussed how NUS evolved over the years from providing early and deep specialization to offering breadth and flexibility and has now progressed to lifelong learning.
In fact, NUS is the “first university to provide a 20-year engagement for all our students”, he said. At the same time, NUS has transformed from being a teaching university to a research-intensive and entrepreneurial university today.
Tan’s presentation highlighted the importance of global orientation, key institutional shifts, critical success factors, research strategies, and the issues that the university experiences. He ended his discussion through sharing some of the problems that the university faces – maintaining and growing a world-class leadership team; recruiting, developing and retaining sufficient top talent; and creating distinctive value and high impact in strategic areas for the country.
“Global orientation is very important because it exposes students. It allows them to see and calibrate themselves vis-à-vis other students,” he said.
Aside from the presentation of Professor Tan, there were other topic discussions which Maspara attended. Some of the topics discussed include Education and National Development: Singapore Perspectives and the Philippine Situation; Education Reform: Redesigning Education for Higher Impact; Universities as Incubators of Innovation; Identifying Policy Problems in the Education Sector; and Cost-Benefit Analysis of Education Reforms.
—with reports from NUS News
