NATIONAL MANPOWER PLANNING

Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon asked the Minister for Trade and Industry whether the present national manpower planning and the various steps taken towards training and education are satisfactory and, if so, if he will elaborate on them.

The Minister for Trade and Industry (BG Lee Hsien Loong): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Council for Professional and Technical Education (CPTE) is a ministerial com- mittee, chaired by the Minister for Trade and Industry, which is responsible for manpower planning in Singapore. It tries to ensure that the supply of manpower meets demand, and that our schools and institutions provide education and training which is relevant to the needs of our growing economy.

Manpower planning is not an exact science. The planners must predict the state of the economy five to 10 years ahead, anticipate what jobs will be in demand, and guess the number of places needed which will be needed in each discipline. The uncertainties are large. But the alternative is to leave it to the individuals to make their own guesses, on the basis of even more incomplete information about the future, on which courses they wish to study, and hope that their choices and guesses turn out right. This is unlikely to be a superior solution.

Each year, MTI reviews our manpower plans. It projects the number of graduates, technicians, and skilled workers which the economy requires, on the basis of GDP growth, change in economic structure, demand for different types of jobs in each sector of the economy and the supply of qualified students.

MTI also monitors the number of students graduating from our institutions, how easily they have found jobs and how much they are paid. On this basis, CPTE sets enrolment targets for the various courses at the universities, the polytechnics and the VITB.

Our manpower planning has succeeded in meeting the needs of the economy for trained personnel at all levels, and in training our students in disciplines in which they can readily find jobs. Although from time to time there have been shortages in particular disciplines, for example, electrical engineering, overall the planning has been reasonably accurate.

Since 1980, CPTE projects have provided the basis for a massive expansion of technical and tertiary education in Singapore. If you look at the figures, for University intakes, 1980, it is 3,002. 1987, 5,114 or 70%. Polytechnics, 1980, 3,113, 1987, 7,550 or an increase of 2.4 times. The VITB, 1980 intakes, 5,311, 1987 intakes 9,403, an increase of 80%.

The major constraint on the expansion of technical education has been the number of qualified trainees, not the demand for graduates or the availability of places. The Minister for Education last week cited the example of the Engineering faculty at the University, which expanded rapidly, had difficulty in filling its places, and admitted some marginal students, and then suffered high failure rates in its five year examinations. The same hs happened with VITB. In 1987, last year, VITB offered more than 13,000 places for skills training. Only 8,000 were taken up. Similarly at polytechnics, even last year, courses like Mechancial Engineering, by no means a discipline in the doldrums, had places still unfilled.

The supply of qualified students will continue to be the major constraint on our output of skilled manpower. The more qualified students we have, the more trained personnel we can produce and the more our economy can expand, provided academic standards are maintained, and the students are trained in the right disciplines.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, I note that the MTI's study of manpower needs of Singapore is related only to the economy at all levels, as the Minister has said. But does this also include professions like teachers and nurses? There seems to be a shortfall in these two areas.

BG Lee Hsien Loong: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, teachers and nurses are part of the economy. So when we consider the needs of the economy, they are also calculated in.

Dr S. Vasoo (Bo Wen): Would the Minister be able to make available the information on manpower needs from time to time to people who are their planning careers ahead? Would he expect this information to be made available this year, or when will be the nearest date possible for such information to be made available?

BG Lee Hsien Loong: Yes, MTI is looking for ways to provide more information on the manpower needs of the economy, who disciplines need people, which faculties produce graduates who are in the greatest demand and are employed most quickly, so that students can know and make informed choices. We are working on it. We should be able to release something this year.

The biggest misallocation in our tertiary education is the very low proportion of girls doing Engineering. 90% of the Engineering Faculty are boys. We are very short of able students to do Engineering. Yet the girls who, at 'A' levels do as well as the boys if not better, are simply not choosing that subject. They go into subjects like Accountancy, Business Administration. They have very good grades, much higher than the grades which would admit them into the Engineering Faculty. In fact, if we look at the job market the demand for Accountancy or Business Administration graduates is lower than the demand for Engineers. The starting salary of an electrical engineer is at $2,000, of an Accountant perhaps $1,000. But there is a strong cultural bias. Girls do not do Engineering because they think they may get your hands dirty. But in electrical engineering, you do not get your hands dirty. That has not sunk in. If we can shift that bias, we will have a more optimal allocation of University undergraduates.

Dr Augustine H.H. Tan (Whampoa): Would the Minister make available information on the starting wages and salaries for the different categories of skills on a regular basis, as this would be an additional useful indicator for students to choose the type of careers?

BG Lee Hsien Loong: Yes, we will do that. In fact, there are already some statistics. I released some last year at a talk in NTI and the students copied down assiduously every single figure as if I was giving them a lecture. We will do it regularly. I hope it will be additional input into their choice. But I also hope that undergraduates do not only choose subjects on the basis of their starting salary. You have to plan a career and it must be a satisfying one. If you are shortsighted and money-minded, you will end up very sad.