Funding Models for Education and Training Programmes for Singaporeans

Mr Speaker, Sir, pre-employment training (PET) is often referred to as education. It is a formative experience, to equip our young with a meaningful and carefully designed body of knowledge and skills, to help them become independent, contributing members of society. The focus is on values, civic consciousness, foundational skills like literacy and numeracy, and certain domain expertise to kickstart a career and a journey of lifelong learning.

Continuing Education and Training (CET), often referred to as training, is to build upon PET, to upgrade skills and knowledge, keep up with technology and changes in the industry, or even to pick up another set of domain expertise. The focus is on competencies at the workplace.

Sir, in general, policymakers throughout the world put more public resources on PET, because it influences children and the young, and has profound impact on nation and society. CET, on the other hand, is often more beneficial to the individual as it imparts skills and competencies which he can use at his workplace. Singapore is one of the few countries in the world that takes a lifelong learning approach and organises this within one Ministry.

For PET, most primary and secondary schools require minimal co-payment of school fees. Higher education at the Institutes of Technical Education (ITEs), polytechnics and autonomous universities also attract significant funding. Students who need additional help can further apply for bursaries and financial assistance.

CET is also funded substantially, but with greater gradation depending on the context and outcomes. For example, for a Professional Conversion Programme, which we are placing a displaced worker into a new industry, we fund it most generously, including wages, while he is undergoing training. We also provide more support to training of workers in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and older workers. Other training programmes may be funded at up to 70% to help defray the cost of training that can help a company or worker derive individual benefits.

While this is the broad consideration, the division between PET and CET is never neat. For example, adult learners may decide to attend full-time Nitec or polytechnic diploma programmes, while an individual who did not attend many years of formal education may undergo CET programmes as part of his formative education and skills upgrading.

The integration of SkillsFuture Singapore into the Ministry of Education (MOE) has raised the awareness of these complexities. By and large, the system is conceptually sound, and we will iron out the arrangements over time.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to thank the Senior Minister of State for the answer. Let me clarify my question. Essentially, it is a broader policy question with regard to how the Government is signalling our efforts to develop the culture of continuous learning in Singapore. But also, at the back of it, is actually due to some of my recent visits to ITE, talking to the teachers and students. They shared that there has been a rising number, as the Senior Minister of State has alluded to earlier, a rising number of adult learners going to Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) and ITE.

And with regard to recent speeches by Dr Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State for the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources and the Ministry of Health in 2016, she highlighted this close linkage between PET and CET when she went to the Chemical Process Technology Centre (CPCT) where there was a Workforce Development Agency allocation of $8 million and 1,650 Post-Secondary Education Institution (PSEI) students actually benefited from these CPCT arrangement over three years.

So, the Government has actually worked to merge PET and CET together in some small cases like this. I was wondering what more can the Government do in terms of signalling more about how we can actually merge PET and CET in some grey areas or, in the future, what are the long-term strategies that Government plans to do, particularly in the sense of developing a culture of continuous learning in Singapore, going forward?

Mr Speaker, I thank the Member for his questions. The Member is right that the culture of lifelong learning does not stop at learning in school or in the IHLs. After the individual has left the IHLs, left school, we want this learning to continue for life. And that is why the lines between education institutions and workplace need to be further blurred so that for someone in school, in an IHL, we want to bring workplace requirements and workplace experiences into our schools and into our IHLs. Internships, job relevant skills – these are elements which we want to be able to bring into our schools and our IHLs.

The other way is equally important. We want to be able to bring our workers who have already started work, who have already left school, to go back and do further upgrading of skills, lifelong learning. This is why the direction that MOE has taken in recent years is to encourage our IHLs to not only focus on providing PET but to also look at being providers of CET and make that a core part of their mission. So, if we can do it this way, we are then able to have this two-way flow – what the workplace requires in terms of skills and experience, bring it into the schools and IHLs, and to be able to also bring our workers back to reskill, to upskill.

Sir, one very important enabler to allow this to happen is actually our strong tripartite partnership in Singapore and this is something which is not found in many other countries. But here, we have it. We want to continue to nurture and treasure this very strong partnership that we have built up over the years because it is very helpful. When it comes to retraining, we need the workers to be onboard, the Labour Movement. We also need the employers to be on board and that is why the Government, together with employers and union, we will continue to work on this. Because this is, as the Member said, a lifelong pursuit, changing the culture, making lifelong learning part of our DNA.

I just want to seek a clarification. For adult Singaporeans who want to pursue a second or third degree in, for example, skills that are in demand, like cybersecurity, data analytics, occupational therapy, speech pathology, do they get to receive subsidised fees when they enter our local universities? I have the impression that they are not; they do not get that because it is another bite of the cherry, depending on how many times they have received a subsidy. And if they do not get a subsidy, then, why not, because these skills are in demand?

Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank Ms Denise Phua for raising this very important question. Indeed, we want to provide opportunities for adult learners who want to switch careers and who want to pick up a new skill, to be able to go through such lifelong learning and skills upgrading programmes. So, what we have provided are various schemes under the SkillsFuture movement. For example, we have the SkillsFuture Mid-Career Enhanced Subsidy which provides up to 90% subsidy for Singaporeans aged 40 and above. And, in addition, mid-career individuals who wish to reskill and switch careers can tap on the Professional Conversion Programmes under the Adapt and Grow initiative, which provides training and salary support of up to 90% to the employers for the duration of the training.

So, these are all different schemes that the Government has provided to help our workers who need to pick up a new skill to be able to transit to a new career or, sometimes, just to pick up additional skills to do their current jobs in their current industries – do it at a higher level, do it better. So, we will look at such ways to support.

CET, even if you do not do it as part of one of these enhanced programmes, we still provide generous subsidies of up to 70%. If you join one of these programmes, there will be additional subsidies up to 90%. It also depends on the profile of the employer and the profile of the worker. Older workers, as well as workers who are working in SMEs, we do provide more funding support.

So, to answer Ms Denise Phua's question, the evolution of these various courses has to move in tandem with what the economy requires. So, when there are new requirements, there are new skills required, there will be new courses that will be added to the list and new courses that can be funded as part of SkillsFuture. So, it is an ongoing thing. It is something which I think we will continuously look at to see what we can do to continue to support our workers.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Senior Minister of State. Following up on the hon Ms Denise Phua's question is that, increasingly, the lines between CET and PET are being blurred. For example, increasingly, more IHLs are introducing stackable modules or stackable courses that lead to a qualification like a diploma or degree. So, how then do you reconcile the funding models between PET and CET? Because you can have someone who already has a degree, but through stackable modules, you can get another degree, eventually.

Sir, we want to look at how do we help our workers to achieve the necessary skills that are relevant for their careers. Because the resources that we have are limited. So, when you divert resources into one area, it means you have less resources for another area. So, it depends on where you want to put your resources into. And in our case, a decision has been taken to, say, let us focus on helping workers who need to go through training because they are switching careers or they are displaced from their original jobs, to look for a new job.

We also want to look at how to help people who want to upgrade their skills, say, they have a National ITE Certificate (Nitec) or Higher Nitec, and they are going for a polytechnic diploma. Or, if they have a polytechnic diploma, they are going for a degree, how do we help them, in areas that are relevant to their work, to be able to do so?

For someone who is going for something that actually benefits an individual more, for example, if you are going for postgraduate degrees or you are going for your second or third degree, it is not that we do not fund you, but I think the funding will have to be calibrated, depending on the competing needs for different groups of individuals.