6 TODAY • Wednesday • January 10, 2007
singapore news
Raising higher education participation
High-brow global panel to
explore ways to boost
Singapore’s beyond 40%
LOH CHEE KONG
cheekong@mediacorp.com.sg
SINGAPORE is gearing up to churn out
more graduates — and postgraduates — as
the country pumps ahead into its next stage
of growth in the new economy.
Currently, about 23 per cent of the co-
hort born each year go on to attend uni-
versity here. Add 17 per cent who pursue
their degree course overseas or through dis-
tance learning, and the university partici-
pation rate stands at about 40 per cent.
That’s not enough, said Dr Tony Tan
yesterday. The chairman of the Internation-
al Academic Advisory Panel (IAAP) has asked
‘Magic’ Wand waves away dental pain
A NEW device at the National Dental Cen-
tre (NDC) has taken the sting out of den-
tal injections, making them truly pain-free.
The device comprises a thin handheld
tool — called The Wand — and a comput-
er system that regulates the delivery speed,
amount and pressure of the anaesthetic.
With the new procedure, which costs
Temasek hit by new Thai curbs
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
company will lower its outlook on the South-
east Asian nation’s credit rating, added S&P
analyst Kim Eng Tan.
Yesterday, the group, which represents
28 chambers of commerce comprising more
than 10,000 businesses, warned that onerous
changes could drive foreign investors.
Political turmoil has already eroded for-
eign direct investment in Thailand, halving
the value of new projects approved by the
Board of Investment in the 10 months to
October from a year earlier.
MORE IN STORE
The IAAP will be charting the way
forward for the higher education land-
scape here. Areas being studied include:
MORE GRADUATES
Upping proportion of citizens, PRs who
enter varsity, as well as encouraging
more to pursue Master’s, PhDs.
MORE RESEARCH
Increased support of Singapore’s nation
research and development drive.
MORE INTERACTION
Helping polytechnics play a greater role
in the tertiary sector by collaborating
with foreign institutions to offer degree
courses in niche areas.
the panel of 12 experts who are in town now
to look into enhancing university education
an extra $15, a topical anaesthetic is first
used to numb the surface of the gum.
The dentist then uses The Wand to
deliver the first shot of anaesthetic, reg-
ulating the drug with a foot pedal. Then,
the computer system takes over to ad-
minister tiny, constant drops of the drug.
— SHERALYN TAY
On Nov 22, Amata Corp, Thailand’s
biggest developer of land for factories, said
its sales had plunged 62 percent in the first
nine months of 2006 as investors delayed proj-
ects because of political concerns.
“Thailand’s political and economic sta-
bility could be heading for tougher times
ahead,” said Standard Chartered economists
Usara Wilaipich and Nicholas Kwan said in
a note to clients today. They cut their fore-
cast for Thailand’s economic growth this
year to 4.4 per cent, from 5.2 per cent.
— AGENCIES
in Singapore in both breadth and depth.
They will not only be exploring how to
boost the number of students graduating with
a university qualification, but also the num-
ber who go on to pursue Master’s and doc-
toral qualifications.
The experts, over four days, will also
explore how the polytechnics can play a
more important role in the tertiary sector.
Said Dr Tan, who also chairs the Na-
tional Research Foundation: “As we look at
other countries, such as Sweden, which
have advanced economies and invest heav-
ily in R&D, we find they have high univer-
sity participation rates. The Swedish gov-
ernment’s target is 50 per cent of those born
in any given year to embark on university-
level education by the age of 25.”
Just how high does Singapore’s rate
need to be to support the new economy?
The panel will hopefully have an answer by
SLAVSVIRTUALMAP
Is ‘altered copying’ an infringement?
TAN HUI LENG
huileng@mediacorp.com.sg
IF YOU enhance a map and pass it off as your
own, is it still copyright infringement?
The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) cer-
tainly thinks so, as the second day of its civil
suit against Virtual Map continued yesterday.
At the heart of the case is the concept of
“altered copying” — copying with modifications.
In their opening statement on Monday,
SLA said their civil suit centres on whether
Virtual Map has used the base materials given
by the government agency and made alter-
ations to them. The case isn’t about the “usual
form of infringement” where one party copies
a portion of the work without significant al-
teration, in which the only issue is whether
or not the part taken is substantial.
Yesterday, three more SLA staff mem-
bers took the stand.
To Virtual Map’s claim that the digitised
data it received from the SLA was “raw” and
Friday, as they also look into the universities’
role in supporting Singapore’s R&D focus.
When asked how the university par-
ticipation rate here compares to other coun-
tries, one of the panellists, Professor Ashok
Misra, director of the Indian Institute of
Technology (Bombay), told TODAY that 40
to 50 per cent is “an excellent number”
for a small country such as Singapore.
“In India, it’s lower. But you have to take
into account the rural and urban populations.
It’s very difficult to compare (across coun-
tries) and you shouldn’t,” he said.
The panel, which in its last meeting in
2005 had “strongly endorsed” a high-level
government committee’s recommendation
to privatise the National University of Sin-
gapore and the Nanyang Technological Uni-
versity, comprises heads of renowned uni-
versities in United States, Switzerland,
Japan and India, among others.
bore “no substantial similarity” to their prod-
uct, SLA charged that there was substantial
reproduction on the part of Virtual Map.
As an ex-licensee of SLA who had access
to SLA’s work, it had “copied SLA’s ‘skele-
ton’”, the result of “hard work, skill, labour
and money invested by the Government”.
SLA highlighted the “numerous tell-tale
signs, errors and fingerprints” in Virtual
Map’s work. The firm has “neither the skill
to create a map ab initio (from scratch) nor
the facilities to map building shapes with
any precision other than copy what has al-
ready been done”, said SLA’s expert wit-
ness, British map-maker expert, land sur-
veyor and law lecturer Carl Calvert.
“Extensive work can be done by any-
one on a good mapping base but it does re-
quire the mapping base. No one may weave
a carpet without a loom and SLA has the car-
tographic loom,” he said, adding that Virtual
Map has tried to disguise the copying.
The hearing continues.