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New CET masterplan to get employers more involved in building skills

SINGAPORE – Getting employers to be actively involved in building their employees’ skills and helping individuals make better-informed career choices are some of the key initiatives laid out in the new Continuing Education and Training (CET) Masterplan.

SINGAPORE – Getting employers to be actively involved in building their employees’ skills and helping individuals make better-informed career choices are some of the key initiatives laid out in the new Continuing Education and Training (CET) Masterplan.

The masterplan, unveiled by the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA) today (Sept 17), will be about changing relationships, said WDA Chief Executive Ng Cher Pong.

“The focus will be on changing three key relationships — that with employers, with individuals and with training providers,” he said, speaking to reporters at the sidelines of the launch of the Lifelong Learning Institute.

This means that employers will be more involved in building skills, individuals will take responsibility for their own career and skills planning while training providers should take ownership of the training outcomes.

The new masterplan will also support the work of the new tripartite committee led by Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, said the WDA.

Under the CET 2020 Masterplan, the WDA will work with sector lead agencies, employers and unions to jointly develop medium-term manpower and skills strategies to support industry growth and productivity efforts. They will 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 frameworks, WDA will also develop competency frameworks for each sector, which will support the development of pre-employment training and CET programmes.

These frameworks will be able to guide human resource practices, such as recruiting and planning employees’ pathways for career progression, for instance.

The agency began its review of its 2008 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 average, the WDA hopes to reach out to more SMEs by partnering SPRING’s network of SME Centres to provide manpower and training advisory support.

The WDA will also partner the Education Ministry to help individuals make better learning and career choices, where an online education, training and career guidance portal will then be developed. Beginning with their journey in schools and lasts throughout their careers, the portal will allow individuals to chart and review their education, training and career developments.

The 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.

In addition, more place-and-training 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 to provide more “high-quality” learning opportunities, said the WDA.

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