Provision of English Language Courses for Foreign Army Officers

Mrs Lina Chiam asked the Minister for Defence (a) whether a tender was called for the provision of an English Language course for one People's Liberation Army officer; (b) if so, what was the tender amount awarded to the education provider; and (c) under what circumstances was the tender awarded.

Mdm Speaker, the Member has asked specific queries about a course which MINDEF had tendered for. Before I answer her specific questions, I think it will be useful for Members to understand a little bit more about why militaries exchange officers. And for obviously good reasons, It is very useful for SAF to send our officers to attend the staff college courses of other militaries and vice versa. It will establish very good relationships with other countries' militaries and you will understand their perspectives. And when incidents occur, they can be very useful resource persons, as it occurred, for example, in the Indian Ocean tsunami, where we had our own officers who had gone to Indonesia and when we were on the ground, we could quickly connect with the officers there.

And, so, for these reasons, militaries all over have for many years exchanged officers to each other's courses to establish better ties. But one of the problems in doing this is, of course, language of instruction. For example, if we send our SAF officers to Indonesia, not all of them can speak Bahasa Indonesia. Bahasa Indonesia is actually not that difficult. For example, if we sent them to Thailand, or to Japan, and the language of instruction is in that country's language. For a year, language proficiency is important for them to be able to benefit from the course. Vice versa, for some foreign officers who attend SAF's military courses, we have to help them gain language proficiency so that they can benefit from their

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time here.

And for this particular officer which the Member asked for, we required a personalised 360-hour course. One-on-one, 360-hour course, is standard to get them to the level of proficiency conducted by a qualified English instructor. When our SAF officers go to other countries, they do the same in terms of spending some months to gain language proficiency. As I have said, such as in Bahasa Indonesia.

So, for this purpose, a 360-hour course, personalised, one-on-one, conducted by a qualified English language instructor, MINDEF put out a tender on Government's e-procurement portal, Government Electronic Business (GeBiz), for this language course. We had about five or six people, companies who replied. The contract was awarded to the lowest offer that met the requirements and this was the amount of $25,900, which worked out to about $70 an hour. All this was in strict compliance with Government regulations.

I thank the Minister for the comprehensive answer. I would like to ask a supplementary question. Were there any other occasions where the Government paid for language classes for officials from another nation's government?

Mdm Speaker, I would not speak on behalf of Government. I will speak on behalf of MINDEF. Yes, we do this for foreign officers from other countries as well. In the last staff course graduation dinner that was just last week, I think there were about 15 foreign officers from countries, which is quite good for us. Some of them already have language proficiency, so they do not need it, but some do and we offer it to them. There is a level of reciprocity that other countries provide for our SAF officers going there, but I will tell you that not all countries provide reciprocity. Depending on their resources, some countries do. This is part and parcel of our relationship-building. But the short answer to your question is "MINDEF does".