Singapore universities sign MOU on legal education with Myanmar

SINGAPORE - The law faculties of the National University of Singapore and the Singapore Management University have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Cooperation in Legal Education with the University of Yangon on Tuesday.

Senior Minister of State (SMS) for Law Ms Indranee Rajah SC witnessed the signing of the MOU in Myanmar where she is visiting from February 18 to 20.

Here is the transcript of remarks delivered by SMS at the MOU Signing Ceremony:

First, I would like to thank all of you for the very warm welcome to myself and the delegation. We are very honoured to be here today, and I myself am honoured to be here today to witness the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Legal Education between the law faculties of the University of Yangon, the National University of Singapore and the Singapore Management University.

Myanmar and Singapore share a long and warm friendship. In recent times, our friendship has grown even closer. On 30 January 2012, both countries signed an MOU on the Singapore-Myanmar Technical Cooperation Programme. Through that MOU, Singapore provided technical assistance in the areas of trade, law, banking, and technical education.

Today, we are taking another step to further strengthen these relations. The MOU on Cooperation in Legal Education marks a milestone in formalising a partnership between our universities. The key areas of cooperation under the MOU include:

a. Faculty exchanges and study visits with a view to enhancing linkages and knowledge sharing among the academic staff;
b. Assistance in curriculum design;
c. Teacher training; and
d. The enhancement of resources for legal research and development in Myanmar.

A good legal education system equips law students with the requisite knowledge and skills. It is critical to establishing a robust Rule of Law framework and I hope that this MOU will contribute to the strengthening of the Rule of Law in Myanmar.

BOOK CONTRIBUTION - THE SINGAPORE LAW COLLECTION

On this note, it also gives me great pleasure to announce that the Singapore Ministry of Law, working with the Singapore Academy of Law, the law faculties of the National University of Singapore and Singapore Management University, as well as the Attorney-General's Chambers of Singapore, and the Subordinate Courts of Singapore, have put together a collection of Singapore law textbooks and other legal research tools to contribute to your expanding collection of resources for legal research in the Law Department of the University of Yangon.

The textbooks in the collection cover a variety of subjects, including corporate and commercial law, criminal law, and land law. We hope that you will find this contribution useful and we look forward to further collaboration between our universities as well as Singapore and Myanmar.

CONCLUSION

I am confident that there will be even more opportunities for closer collaboration between our two countries and look forward to forging closer ties with Myanmar in the years to come.