SINGAPORE: As foreign visitors swarm to their colleges, disrupting individuals, two prestigious universities in Singapore are paying the price for their success.  , Nanyang Technological University (NTU), one of them, recently imposed a charge to control the influx of curious tourists.
Students from NTU and the National University of Singapore ( NUS) have recently voiced their complaints about the difficulties they believe travellers have caused on the online forum Reddit.
The most noticeable of these are the lengthy, winding lines at canteens during lunchtimes, the noisy, distracting voices that reverberate throughout common study areas, and the traffic jams brought on by tour buses that pick up, drop off, or wait for tourists.
Students at NTU reported TODAY that while attending classes at The Hive for at least three times, they have even experienced distractions like flashing mobile devices and prying eyes from onlookers.
Tourists frequently use the building as a picture opportunity because of how much its wall resembles dark sum baskets.  ,
Even when classes were still in session, some visitors entered the rooms.
Ms. Cathryn Wong, 27, a student of American literature at NTU, recalled that “last year, one party just walked in, sit down, and listened to the lecture ( for the last 20 days ).”
NTU announced last Thursday ( Feb 1 ) that going forward, all travel companies planning tours to their campus must first obtain the university’s consent.
It will be necessary for holiday groups to pre-register online and make travel plans in advance. Additionally, there would be an entrance fee, which the college claimed is necessary to support campus upkeep and the control of automobile flow.
The question about how much the payment will be and how it may operate has yet to receive a response from NTU.
The NUS and NTU colleges have constantly been named among the best universities in Asia, which, according to tour operators and some of the visitors themselves, is what draws people to visit them.
Three different groups of Chinese tourists said they wanted their youngsters, ranging in age from seven to sixteen, to see what college career was like at these universities when TODAY visited both colleges next Wednesday.
According to Times Higher Education, a British publication that every publishes worldwide school rankings, NUS and NTU were ranked third and fifth, respectively, in Asia in 2023. The universities were ranked 19th and 36th, both, worldwide.