Govt-funded training courses drew record number of sign-ups last year

SINGAPORE — A record number of people last year took up places in training courses funded by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG), the government agency tasked to support Singaporeans in pursuing industry-relevant skills training.

In its first report on “the state of the training industry”, which assesses the training landscape in Singapore, the agency said that 418,000 individuals took up 950,000 training places last year — an increase from 379,000 people who enrolled in 835,000 places the year before.

Last year, MOE and SSG pumped in S$458 million in direct training subsidies, which is about 20 per cent more than what was provided in 2015.

The bulk of the funding, or about 90 per cent, went into targeted course-fee subsidies, in line with the key sectors of Singapore’s economy. The top areas of training by industry included information and communications, education and training, and service.

The rest of the funding went directly to individuals, through initiatives such as the SkillsFuture Credit scheme, which gives Singaporeans aged 25 and older S$500 in credits to pay for training courses.

SSG said that the jump in enrolment is partly driven by last year’s launch of the national SkillsFuture movement. The movement seeks to strengthen the culture of lifelong learning among the population and continual training for workers.

The increase also corresponded with a rise in Singapore’s overall training participation rate to 42 per cent last year, the highest in recent years, it said, quoting the Manpower Ministry’s Labour Force in Singapore 2016 report. The training participation rate is the proportion of residents aged 15 to 64 in the labour force who had engaged in some form of job-related structured training or education activities over a 12-month period ending June of each year.

One way for workers to pick up new skills or develop existing ones is through the Singapore Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ) system.

To better assess the impact and usefulness of WSQ training for both employees and employers, SSG conducts regular surveys with individuals and companies who have taken part in WSQ training, to help ascertain if WSQ courses are relevant to meet the changing demands of the workforce.

The agency said that close to 97 per cent of the companies surveyed last year reported that WSQ training had a positive impact on their employees’ skills application, a slight increase from about 96 per cent in the previous year. The percentage of individuals who indicated that WSQ training had enabled them to work more efficiently and effectively also remained high at around 90 per cent.

SSG plans to broaden the scope of these post-training surveys beyond WSQ training to cover all training places funded by it and MOE.

Mr Ng Cher Pong, its chief executive, said: “As we continue to invest heavily in SkillsFuture, we will expand the tracking of training outcomes and how the skills acquired are utilised at workplaces.”

Relevant information from these surveys would be published on the MySkillsFuture portal, to help individuals make more informed training decisions, the agency added.