The mint new second campus of the island republic’s top international school, Canadian Indian School, Singapore constructed at a cost of Rs.630 crore completes one year of operations this month A live example of the transformative power of high quality education to develop human capital into national prosperity, the Republic of Singapore (per capita income: $49,700 or Rs.22.36 lakh) has been endowed a newly constructed second campus of the IBO (International Baccalaureate Organisation), Geneva-affiliated Canadian International School (CIS, estb.1990). On October 31, Canadian International School, Singapore will celebrate the first anniversary of its new $140 million (Rs.630 crore) Lakeside campus, adjacent to Jurong Lake in Jurong West, which houses 2,050 students and 184 teachers. CIS’ new seven-floor schools-within-school building with a built-up area of 463,000 sq. ft designed by the highly-reputed transnational architecture firm Strategic Design International, Singapore, features thoroughly contemporary academic and extra-curricular facilities including ICT-enabled classrooms, spacious sports infrastructure, a performing and fine arts auditorium and media centre. The ground-up construction of the Lakeside campus of the K-12 Canadian International School, Singapore, rated among the island nation’s top international schools, has been facilitated and funded by the Singapore-based Knowledge Universe (KU) — the world’s largest private K-12 education corporate with over 350,000 students enroled in its preschools, schools and other education institutions worldwide — which acquired a majority stake in CIS in 2010. Under the terms and conditions of the partnership agreement between Knowledge Universe and CIS, three of the school’s four campuses and communities have been consolidated into the new Jurong West campus, while the East Coast campus at Tanjog Katong continues to host 800 students. “CIS represents Knowledge Universe’s first major foray in K-12 education in Asia. Therefore we’ve taken great pains and spared no expense to transform it into a truly world-class institution comparable with the best IB schools worldwide,” says Peter Maslen, chief executive of KU, which inter alia owns and runs 1,740 private preschools in the US, 216 in the UK and 41 in Singapore, to which it moved its global headquarters in 2007. Although restricted to admitting children of expatriates, i.e foreign nationals resident in Singapore, CIS has an aggregate enrolment of 2,850 students from 68 countries tutored by 225 highly qualified faculty. A full IB school offering the primary, middle years and higher secondary diploma programmes of IBO, CIS graduates are welcomed into the world’s top universities such as Rutgers, Boston, British Columbia and Waterloo. Founded by serial entrepreneur Thomas Tang as a university prep school (Canadian Overseas College) with six higher secondary students in 1990, over the past two decades Canadian International School, Singapore has built an enviable reputation for providing excellent K-12 academic and extra-curricular education. “The distinguishing feature of CIS education is that we thoroughly prepare our students for the future by developing their comprehension, analysis and self-learning skills in a technologically enabled environment. Our partnership with Knowledge Universe has transformed CIS into a contemporary technology-intensive school with ICT (information communications technologies) fully integrated into our student learning…
