APPRENTICESHIP TRAINING

Mr Ong Ah Heng asked the Minister for Trade and Industry what incentives have been given for apprenticeship training; how successful has the concept been here; and whether more places will be created in future.

Mr Lee Yock Suan: The Apprenticeship Training Scheme complements the full-time training system. Apprenticeship comprises On-the-Job Training (OJT) and Off-the-Job Training (Off-JT). OJT is provided by the company which employs the apprentice. Off-JT, which consists of classroom instruction and workshop practice, is conducted in an ITE institute or an approved industry training centre.

The Skills Development Fund (SDF) provides financial assistance, in the form of grants, to companies for apprenticeship training. A company will be given up to $11,000/trainee for training an unskilled apprentice to NTC-2 skill level. These grants cover about half of a company's total training cost. To date, SDF has approved about $40 million to support some 6,620 apprentices, of whom more than 5,000 have completed their apprenticeship. The Institute for Technical Education (ITE) acts as the organisation for certifying the training as well as disbursing SDF incentive grants. Many small employers have benefited from ITE disbursing grants at year-end rather than at the end of each trade course, which may take up to three years.

The Apprenticeship Scheme has received good response from employers. Driven by industry demand, the number of apprenticeship courses has expanded from 70 in 1996 to 75 in 1998, covering 21 trade clusters.

Over the last five years, employers have been offering an average of 2,500 apprentice places a year. However, these places have not been fully taken up because the majority of technical students still prefer to pursue full-time training in the ITE. Typically, only 18% of this group chooses to enter the Apprenticeship Scheme. Also, the introduction of the Secondary Normal (Technical) course four years ago has temporarily constrained the number of trainees entering the Scheme. We expect the yearly number of trainees joining the Apprenticeship Scheme to increase to 1,700 (from 1,000 in 1997) when the first batch of Normal (Technical) school-leavers enters the job market this year.

The Government will continue to promote apprenticeship as an attractive and cost-effective mode of training to both employers and school-leavers.