CET revamp to help employees make better career, learning choices

SINGAPORE — Under the new Continuing Education and Training (CET) Masterplan unveiled yesterday, the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA) will be helping individuals make better-informed career and learning choices, as well as getting employers to be actively involved in building and valuing their employees’ skills.

Under the blueprint — which will support the work of the new tripartite committee led by Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam — WDA will work with lead agencies, employers and unions in various sectors to identify the specific manpower and skills required for each sector over a five-year period and spell out the measures needed to meet these requirements.

Building on existing Singapore Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ) frameworks, the agency will also develop competency frameworks for each sector to support the development of pre-employment training and CET programmes. These will guide human resource practices, such as recruiting and planning employees’ pathways for career progression, for instance.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the official opening of the Lifelong Learning Institute, WDA chief executive Ng Cher Pong said: “The focus will be on changing three key relationships — that with employers, with individuals and with training providers.”

WDA began a review of its masterplan last year, which was focused primarily on expanding the national CET training capacity and developing tripartite cooperation in national CET efforts. Noting that the proportion of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that provided structured training in 2012 was slightly lower than the overall average, WDA said it hopes to reach out to more SMEs by partnering SPRING Singapore’s network of SME Centres to provide manpower and training advisory support.

WDA will also partner the Education Ministry to help individuals make better learning and career choices: An online education, training and career guidance portal will be developed. The portal will allow individuals — beginning from the time they start school, and throughout their careers — to chart and review their education, training and career developments.

WDA also plans to increase the pool of career coaches at its career centres, while raising the professional competencies of the existing pool of some 80 coaches.

More place-and-train programmes — including those targeted at fresh polytechnic and ITE graduates — will be introduced as part of efforts to provide more structured workplace-based learning. More courses adopting both classroom and online learning will also be introduced.