The upcoming Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) has revealed plans to open six campuses by 2014, after signing an agreement with the island’s polytechnics.

Five of the campuses will be established within existing polytechnics in order to take advantage of their facilities and staff. The sixth location has yet to be decided, but will focus on student services.

The President of SIT, Tan Chin Tiong, said: “If you look at polys currently, they are very well-built in terms of infrastructure – the labs, studios and the teaching classrooms that they already have. I would say they are world-class, so there’s no reason not to leverage on what they already have.”

SIT is being positioned as a more accessible opportunity for polytechnic graduates to pursue a university degree, with courses running two years and costing around S$9,000 ($6,400).

The Institute will begin offering its first degree courses from August in partnership with the Technical University of Munich, Newcastle University, the Culinary Institute of America, the University of Nevada and DigiPen Institute of Technology.

Around half of the SIT faculty will be recruited from overseas, whilst the rest will be made up of existing polytechnic lecturers and new staff from Singapore.

Tan Hang Cheong, Principal of Singapore Polytechnic, said: “If you look at the polytechnic lecturers now, the majority of them have a least a post-graduate, a masters degree. So I think it’s the wrong perception to think polytechnic lecturers are all basic degree holders. That was in the past, but now it’s a very different scenario.”