Preparing Firefighters for Post-retirement Career Switches

Mr K Karthikeyan asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs whether firefighters are trained for different jobs before their early retirement to enable them to make career switches.

Mr Teo Chee Hean: Since 2012, Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) has collaborated with the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA) to accredit the modules of SCDF’s fire-fighting training programmes with the national-level Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ) framework. This ensures that the competencies acquired by officers during their continual training in SCDF will be recognised by private sector employers from various industry sectors and improves our officers’ employability when they retire from or leave SCDF.

In addition, SCDF also runs training courses for retiring officers covering areas such as resume writing and job interview skills, which will prepare them to seek second careers beyond the Force.