By Jane Ng and Amelia Tan

THE National University of Singapore (NUS) has begun talks with top liberal arts colleges in the United States and expects to identify a suitable partner by next year.

NUS, which has been chosen to explore the possibility of setting up a new liberal arts college with an annual intake of up to 250 students, announced this on Friday at the close of a three-day meeting by the International Academic Advisory Panel (IAAP).

NUS senior deputy president Tan Chorh Chuan said these colleges have also indicated interest in furthering talks with NUS, to discuss what model the liberal arts college here might adopt.

Highlighting previous collaborations in NUS, he said the partnership could be modelled after its music conservatory, which had the help of the Peobody Institute in its set up, but now gives out NUS degrees, or could take the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School's model which gives out degrees from both universities.

The IAAP, a high-level panel of top academics and industry leaders from around the world, said in its recommendations that establishing a liberal arts college is of 'strategic importance' to Singapore.

It met this week to discuss recommendations made by a committee looking into the expansion of the university sector.

Panel chairman Tony Tan said that the panel recognised the challenges in setting up a liberal arts college, for instance, funding and partnership.

In other recommendations, the panel endorsed the fourth university proposal, including its emphasis on interdisciplinary learning, entrepreneurship and proposed disciplines in design, engineering and business.

But it reiterated the need for the university to uphold the high quality of education in the university sector.

The IAAP was established in 1997 by MOE to advise Singapore's universities on major trends and directions in university education and the development of Singapore's tertiary sector as a whole.

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