AN ECONOMIC slowdown is upon the world, but there will always be a demand for lifelong learning.

That is why the financial gloom will not affect Singapore's effort to be a regional education hub, said Mr S. Iswaran, the Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry. He was speaking at the opening ceremony of Curtin University of Technology's first Singapore campus at Jalan Rajah.

The new university is part of the Economic Development Board's (EDB) Global Schoolhouse initiative, which aims to develop Singapore as a regional education centre.

When asked if the global downturn will affect Curtin Singapore or the initiative, Mr Iswaran said: "People will continue to invest in education. Education is fundamental."

More importantly, recessions are when "people place a greater emphasis on education" and require "retraining and further education", he added.

Although a global slowdown also means a tightening of budgets, he is confident that Singapore offers "value for money", because of the quality of its products and programmes.

Currently, Curtin Singapore's 800 students are studying in three different private schools: The Singapore Institute of Materials Management, Singapore Human Resources Institute, and Marketing Institute of Singapore.

The students will move into the Jalan Rajah campus on Dec 1. The campus comprises 40 tutorial rooms, 10 lecture halls, a 150-seat canteen, a library, a basketball court and a football pitch. It will serve up to 1,500 students by the end of next year.

The university has earmarked $40 million to develop the campus over a nine-year period.

Under the Global Schoolhouse initiative, EDB hopes to attract as many as 150,000 international students to Singapore institutions by 2015. Their presence, according to a Government economic review panel in 2002, would "create 22,000 jobs and boost the education sector's gross domestic product contribution from 1.9 per cent to 5 per cent".

cheryll@sph.com.sg