The Lifelong Learning Endowment Fund Advisory Council1 (LLEFAC) is urging that the Government sends a strong and consistent message to the public that employers are increasingly looking for people with the right mindset and skills to perform at their jobs. This means that there must be a strong emphasis on skills training for adults, and ensure that skills upgrading and attainment becomes a key pathway for career advancement, over and above the well-accepted academic pathway.
2. The LLEFAC was set up in 2001 under the Lifelong Learning Endowment Fund Act to advise the Minister for Manpower on the application of the income of the Endowment Fund. In this context, the Council oversees the budgetary matters and funding policies of WDA’s manpower development funds. The Council is predominantly an industry panel with representation from self-help groups and the union. See Annex A for the list of members.
3. In line with its key message, the LLEFAC suggested a holistic approach to maximise the potential of the CET Masterplan. This includes:
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- Strengthen WDA’s engagement with industry players, such as “queen bee” companies, major CET centres and industry associations, in the design and delivery of Singapore Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ) programmes to ensure that they serve industry needs. With a tightened alignment of targeted industries’ needs with workforce development, better job placements will be created for trained workers. Ultimately, there should be constant feedback by the industry and constant improvement of CET offerings by WDA and the CET Centres.
- Adopt a strategic view of CET and continue to prioritise its resources to focus on growth areas and sectors, which would be beneficial to workers. For these growth sectors, WDA should aim to build up a pipeline of workers or achieve a quantum leap in productivity that is needed to maintain industry competitiveness, raise pays and improve lives of the workers. There should be active engagement with companies to achieve an in-depth understanding of existing gaps between the needs of companies and the skill sets of the workforce.
- Invest more resources and couple good commercial discipline with more market responsiveness to strengthen CET centres and encourage competition and innovation for better CET delivery. To ensure that CET is not the monopoly of any one sector or player, WDA should also collaborate with private and public training providers on setting up and developing the CET Centres.
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4. The LLEFAC opined that although employers hire and promote workers using their educational qualifications as a basic yardstick to measure their abilities and potential, the rapid changes in the economy have led more employers to recognise the value of hiring workers who are skilled and competent to do specialised jobs. Lifelong learning therefore becomes a crucial means for workers to stay employable, marketable and relevant to the economy. It requires a broad spectrum of workers from all industries to constantly acquire new skills, upgrade their existing skills, and collectively deepen our skills base to sharpen our economic and business competitiveness.
5. In response to this need, WDA will launch a National CET Public Education Campaign called ‘Learning for life, advancing with skills’ starting today. This programme, which comprises a range of publicity and outreach activities, will drive home the message that workers can advance with skills for career progression and lead better lives, while employers can move their businesses up the value chain through skills upgrading.2
6. “The 10-year CET Masterplan is an excellent initiative taking into account the major trends shaping our manpower landscape today. With globalisation and intensive competition for information, capital and talent, Singapore’s economy is undergoing restructuring, and this creates new higher-value added jobs, rendering lower-value added jobs obsolete. Employers need to adapt their hiring practices and workers need to upgrade their skills to stay competitive and relevant at the workplace. The CET Masterplan is a timely intervention to support Singapore’s push for a more skilful, employable and competitive workforce.” said Mr Bill Chang, Chairman of LLEFAC.
7. Mr Ong Ye Kung, Chief Executive of WDA said, “WDA thanks the Council’s for their contributions and inputs. Our society emphasises strongly on academic upgrading, and less on skills advancement. As a champion of skills upgrading, we need to change the mindset of Singaporeans to recognise the value of skills upgrading. With the right skills, those who don’t have jobs can move into one. If they are already in a job, they can move up to a better job or wider job scope. If a sector in the industry is not doing well, skills can help them move between sectors or companies; or if the industry is not doing well, skills can help them move across industries. All these are done making use of skills to seize opportunities.
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