In 1954, Mr A. W. Gibson, an expert of technical education from Britain was invited to study the feasibility of the establishment of a polytechnic in Singapore. He concluded that the Colony urgently needed a polytechnic to address the problem of an acute shortage of properly-trained technicians. He also reported that a polytechnic was necessary for an expansion of the secondary industries required to provide jobs for Singapore’s rapidly expanding population. With legislative approval, the first Board of Governors was appointed the following year and the construction of the Singapore Polytechnic campus at Prince Edward Road was completed in 1958. The polytechnic moved to its present site at Dover in 1978.
