While Singapore’s methods were effective in the 1960s in curbing student activism, experts say a different tack is now needed for the situation in Hong Kong. Unlike Singapore, several cities across Asia saw periods of campus activism in the 1980s where youngsters “acted as spark plugs for sweeping political change later”, said political scientist Alan Chong, who teaches at NTU – which was founded in 1981 on the former Nanyang University campus.