GRANT FROM SKILLS DEVELOPMENT FUND

Mr Ang Mong Seng asked the Minister for Manpower whether the 70% grant from the Skills Development Fund (SDF) for worker training could be directly paid by SDF first instead of by the employers, thus alleviating the financial strain on employers due to the present economic slowdown.

Dr Lee Boon Yang: I am pleased to inform the Member for Bukit Batok that such a scheme is already in place to help employers. Under the SDF Training Voucher Scheme, a company need not pay the full fee for the approved training programme. It pays only its share of the fee. The SDF will reimburse the training provider directly for the subsidised portion. This eases the cash-flow for companies.

The Training Voucher Scheme (TVS) helps employers to gain access to a wide selection of skills training courses. These courses are supported at up to 80% of the course fee. There are presently a total of 423 TVS programmes offered, covering both technical skills and productivity improvement modules. In FY 1997, a total of 9,933 applications were supported under the Scheme.

The PSB will extend this Scheme to cover all publicly offered training courses. This will reduce the training expenses of employers, and encourage them to consider more training for their staff.