Debated in Parliament on 1 Mar 2024.
Ms He Ting Ru asked the Minister for Education (a) in the last five years, what is the number of persons with disabilities who applied for SkillsFuture courses and were rejected by training providers; (b) whether there were any rejections due to the providers being unable to provide reasonable accommodations for such applicants; (c) what are the other reasons for such rejections; and (d) whether the Ministry will collect this data, if such data is currently unavailable.
Ms He Ting Ru asked the Minister for Education (a) in the last five years, what is the proportion of individuals who enrolled in SkillsFuture courses are persons with disabilities; and (b) aside from having specially curated courses at the Enabling Academy, whether the Ministry will conduct a review of protocols within the SkillsFuture scheme to increase accessibility of such courses to persons with disabilities.
SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) provides enhanced training support for selected courses curated by Enabling Academy to meet the training needs for persons with disabilities. Between 2021 and 2023, an average of about 380 persons with disabilities benefited from this enhanced training per year.
Persons with disabilities may also take courses from the mainstream catalogue of courses funded by SSG and benefit from course fee subsidies available to Singaporeans. With SG Enable and other community stakeholders, we are encouraging and equipping training providers to improve the accessibility of mainstream courses. For example, adult educators can tap on SG Enable's capability development grant to develop training programmes or incorporate use of assistive technology into the training to better meet the learning needs of persons with disabilities.
SSG does not collect data on unsuccessful course applicants, including those with disabilities. In addition to available feedback channels, SSG engages community stakeholders, like SG Enable, social service agencies and training providers, to proactively obtain feedback on how to make training more accessible for persons with disabilities.
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