Workforce Training in Singapore

I would like to seek clarifications. First, Sir, I would like the Minister of State to clarify how much investments have been made in training in the workforce since the last recession. Two, would MOM consider investing in sharper instruments to evaluate the effectiveness of these trainings other than the perceived learning that workers get, for example, where workers say they find the training useful? Those of us with experience in training are familiar with many instruments that measure learning at knowledge level, skills level and impact on business. I would like to seek clarification if MOM would invest more in that.

Finally, would MOM take stronger leadership in the CET (Continuing Education and Training) for the disabled workforce, just as MOE has played a very active role in recent years in educating people with special needs? I think it would be a waste if these good efforts are not followed through when the disabled persons grow up to become members of the workforce in Singapore.

BG [NS] Tan Chuan-Jin: Mr Chairman, I will take the second question first. With regard to this, I think MCYS will be addressing some of these concerns during their COS. I think from MOM’s perspective, we will be open to discuss further in terms of the leadership we could take. Certainly, it is an area that we feel we should support. Presently, we feel that the subject matter experts should drive this and then WDA can step in to see how we can resource it and to recognise some of these qualifications. We will be happy to explore further as to what reasonably we could do.

With regard to the first question, I do not have the specific numbers with me now. Certainly, CET is something that we place a lot of emphasis on and we continue to put in good money to make sure that we train our people. But the point is, like I mentioned earlier, it is important to know what are our returns on investment, not just purely for monetary analysis, but to find out whether our workers are really benefiting. Are the wages increasing and so on?

From surveys, we do see that wages have increased. The numbers may not be as large as perhaps we would like them to be. But I thought the data on the feedback from the trainees were very telling: that many of them want to go back and get more of this training. A lot of them feel more competent, more capable in terms of what they are doing and I think that is important.

But the question is, can we have a much more specific measure, a system of measure in terms of the returns on this investment? I think it is something that we are continuing to look at. It is very difficult to find something that can measure that. I suspect it is a combination of both feedback and raw data in terms of how workers themselves perform. We also recognise that there is also a lag time because sometimes even while you have finished your training, it does not necessarily translate to immediate wage increases. It may take some time. It also depends on the industry that they are going back to. But this is an area that I myself, and those within MOM are asking ourselves: we are doing all this for training, sounds good, feedback is good, but are we really extracting the maximum benefits from it? That is something that we will continue to work on.