Kaplan plan to open second city campus

ONE of the country's biggest private schools, Kaplan Singapore, has announced plans to build a second campus by next year as part of a wide-ranging expansion.

It has about 15,000 students at its Cuppage Road campus and is looking for room for 5,000 more students.

The president of the school's Asia-Pacific division, Mr Mark Coggins, said last Friday that Kaplan plans to target polytechnic graduates and international students to fill the spaces.

The second campus will be in the city and have 18 classrooms, on top of the existing 31 classrooms in Cuppage Road. The school plans to pick a location by early next year.

Kaplan, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Washington Post Company, has over one million students and 27,000 employees in about 600 locations worldwide.

The Singapore campus offers financial training, accounting and business courses, among others.

The new campus will allow the school to offer more programmes in business, information and technology, finance and risk management.

Like most private schools, most of its programmes are offered through tie-ups with foreign universities. The school plans to take ownership of more courses by next year by offering degrees and diplomas from Kaplan University in the United States or Kaplan Business School, which has branches in three Australian cities.

Mr Coggins told The Straits Times he does not think the economic uncertainty gripping the world will affect Kaplan's expansion plans.

To attract international students, Kaplan set up 10 private schools in China which provide high school education to about 2,500 students. Such centres have also been set up in Vietnam, Myanmar and Indonesia to serve as a feeder to Kaplan campuses around the region, including Singapore.

'We have invested a significant amount outside Singapore as a conduit to bring students here.'

About 20 per cent of its students come from outside Singapore. The school plans to increase that proportion to 40 per cent. It also aims to attract more Singaporeans. It plans to offer more courses targeting polytechnic graduates who are unable to get a place in local universities.

'With the economic situation, there will be students who have affordability issues. We want to make sure they realise there is a great domestic alternative, offering the same as what they could get in Sydney or London.'

Kaplan acquired the Financial Training Company in 2003 and the Asia Pacific Management Institute in 2005, marking its first forays into Asia.

Kaplan Inc has expanded from an $80 million company in 1994 to a diverse education group with over $2 billion in revenue last year.