Education, lifelong learning 'will be integrated as one'
Mr Ong Ye Kung takes a wefie with Xuan, a student-created robot, after witnessing representatives from companies and educational institutions signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to give the power engineering sector a boost by creating a pipeline of new employees better matched and trained for the job, at Ngee Ann Polytechnic on Jan 13, 2016. Photo: Jason Quah/TODAY
SINGAPORE — Now that the landscape has shifted such that training has become “second nature” to jobseekers, there are greater synergies between the education and lifelong learning sectors, said Acting Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills) Ong Ye Kung today (Jan 13).
He was explaining the Government’s decision to set up a new statutory board under the Ministry of Education (MOE) to drive SkillsFuture, the national drive for lifelong learning. While employers welcomed the fact that there will be a single agency championing the movement, they said the MOE needs to start building up interactions with businesses, which are, at the moment, more familiar with the Finance and Manpower ministries.
Speaking at an event held at Ngee Ann Polytechnic today where 17 companies and four educational institutions signed a Memorandum of Understanding to nurture talent in the power engineering sector, Mr Ong said: “Education and lifelong learning will be integrated as one. This will make us look at education differently — that it is no longer just confined to schools and institutes of higher learning, but it is a personal lifelong pursuit for mastery and excellence.”
The change, expected by the end of the year, will involve the new MOE statutory board called SkillsFuture Singapore taking over the training functions of the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA). Helping workers with employment, alongside career services and industry engagement, will be the focus for Workforce Singapore, the new statutory board that will replace the WDA.
At the event today, Mr Ong also laid out three areas the SkillsFuture movement will focus on, in tandem with the reorganisation.
One, how to leverage on higher education providers to take an active role in lifelong learning.
Two, the “mutual recognition” of qualifications given by different entities is something to explore. “That will widen the choices for students, workers and learners to progress as (they) learn,” Mr Ong said.
Lastly, the Government will look into audit and regulation of the training and education sectors, he added. As part of the reorganisation, the Council for Private Education — the current regulatory body for the private-education sector — would also be integrated into the SkillsFuture Singapore.
Mr Ong also said there are no plans to lay off or hire staff under the reorganisation. “Staff inevitably will have many questions ... which we have to answer and assure them that actually, going forward, we will have even more challenging work to do,” he added.
Commenting on the reorganisation, businesses said it will make it easier for them to get on board the SkillsFuture movement.
Keystone Cable (Singapore) marketing and administration director Pearl Yu said: “We (will) not get bombarded by different sources and it’s less confusing for a company to be able to talk to just one entity.”
YCH Group executive chairman Robert Yap agreed that having one agency champion the initiative makes it “easier for businesses to recognise”.
Employers also voiced suggestions for changes to current practices, as part of the reorganisation.
Sharing feedback from the business community, Singapore Business Federation (SBF) chief executive Ho Meng Kit wondered if it was possible for the Government to consider offsetting some of the financial burden from training foreign workers. Currently, many government grants for training are only for Singapore citizens or Permanent Residents, he said.
This would benefit businesses, particularly as one-third of the Singapore workforce will comprise foreigners, said Mr Ho. If foreign workers are more highly-skilled, firms become more productive, he added.
Agreeing, 361 Degree Consultancy director Ken Leong cited the construction industry, an industry typically shunned by Singaporeans.
While construction companies own expensive equipment, the foreign workers operating the machines have limited skills, creating a mismatch. “There are not many ways to upgrade these foreigners and then eventually ... we are not as efficient as we want to be,” he added.
