SEAMEN (Expansion of training facilities)

Mr Lee Teck Him asked the Minister for Communications whether he will take steps to expand the facilities for the training of seamen so as to enable more citizens to become seamen.

Mr Yong Nyuk Lin: Mr Speaker, Sir, the Member for Ulu Pandan can rest assured that every effort is being made to expand the facilities for training more of our citizens to become seamen, within the limits of finance made available to us. There is, fortunately, a good demand for the services of our seamen, and it is our first aim to raise the present number of registered seamen of around 8,300 to 20,000, within the next few years.

As our training ship "Singapore" is only able to produce about 500 trained seamen each year, it will be recalled that on 23rd December, 1968, at the Second Reading of the Bill to amend the Seamen's Registry Board, we introduced a crash programme for "on-the-job training on board ships", with Government prepared to pay a subsidy to foreign ship-owners, of the equivalent of $35 per month for every Singapore citizen trainee serving on board their ships. To date, 160 are already under the scheme and another 190, making a total of 350, are waiting to be signed on.

There are also other proposals under active consideration by my Ministry for the expansion of training facilities for seamen, and these will be announced when ready.

Mr Lee Teck Him (Ulu Pandan): (In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, Sir, I must thank the Minister for Communications for giving me a very satisfactory reply. We know that there are numerous shipping companies which are registered in Singapore. These shipping companies should be requested to get rid of the foreign seamen they employ and replace them with Singapore seamen. By doing so, we will be able to solve our unemployment problem to a certain extent.

Furthermore, there are many other methods of training these seamen. For example, a Chinese businessman begins his career as an apprentice doing odd jobs. So we should train our seamen on the same basis. We should request these foreign shipping companies to take on a few apprentices from amongst our citizens to do odd jobs in the ship. There need not be any formal training in the beginning, because instructors have to be employed and this involves paying them salaries. It is therefore a good idea for apprentices to begin training in a shipping company first.