FOREIGN DOMESTIC WORKERS

FOREIGN DOMESTIC WORKERS:

(Reviewing of rule to pass English language proficiency test): 12.

Mr Ong Ah Heng asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether his Ministry will review the rule which requires foreign domestic workers (FDWs) to pass the English language proficiency test; and (b) whether his Ministry will admit FDWs from new sources such as Vietnam and Cambodia.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Manpower (Mr Hawazi Daipi) (for the Minister for Manpower): Sir, overall, about 95% of foreign domestic workers, or FDWs, are able to pass the entry test conducted in basic English. The test does not test proficiency in English but allows us to gauge the ability of FDWs to understand simple safety

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instructions. The test is also useful in setting basic standard so that employment agents are more careful in recruiting foreign domestic workers.

Prior to the introduction of the entry test, many inexperienced and uneducated FDWs were brought into Singapore. Since the introduction of the entry test and together with other measures to raise standards of FDWs, the number of injury and deaths has fallen from an annual average of 37 over the past six years to 24 in 2006. The number of substantiated abuse cases has also fallen from 157 cases in 1997 to 42 in 2006.

As for the approved source countries, the current list includes Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The existing source countries are sufficient to meet the current demand for FDWs and it is not necessary to expand the list of approved source countries at this moment.

Mdm Halimah Yacob: I just want to ask a supplementary question of the Senior Parliamentary Secretary. I am a little bit intrigued by the drawing of the correlation between the number of deaths and the proficiency in English. I wonder whether there has been any study done to show the correlation and therefore to justify the need for the foreign domestic workers to have English as a criterion.

Mr Hawazi Daipi: Sir, that is the most obvious observation that we have made. Requiring foreign domestic workers to have some basic numeracy, literacy as well as basic education means we want to make sure that they are here prepared to work in a completely different environment where English is widely used. With the ability to understand instructions, including safety instructions, their safety is safeguarded, and therefore we observe that the number of accidents and deaths has fallen.