TRAINING OF WORKFORCE FOR KNOWLEDGE-BASED ECONOMY

Mr Tay Beng Chuan asked the Minister for Manpower what initiatives are proposed by his Ministry in preparing and training our workforce to face the challenges of the transformation of Singapore into a knowledge-based economy.

Dr Lee Boon Yang: The Government has been working in close partnership with employers and unions over the last several years to implement initiatives in worker training and upgrading.

The Skills Redevelopment Programme (SRP) to equip less-educated workers with certifiable skills has been making good progress since it was launched in December 1996. To date, more than 14,000 workers have either completed training or are currently undergoing training. The labour movement has been gearing up for the challenge put to it by the Prime Minister in his May Day Rally speech this year, to train 100,000 workers under the SRP by May Day in year 2003. Over the next few months, the SRP for several new sectors will be launched.

The Government is fully committed to supporting the SRP. We have so far allocated a total of $100 million to the programme. This is supplemented by another $50 million set aside by the Skills Development Fund for the SRP. In addition, a Skills Development Centre costing $20 million has been established to increase the training capacity under the SRP.

We also supported initiatives such as the NTUC Education and Training Fund (N-ETF), launched in October 1998. The Government has provided a grant of $12 million to the NTUC to match funds of $4 million that the labour movement has raised. NTUC has reported that the Fund has received very good response. More than 10,600 union members have benefited from training support, already exceeding NTUC's initial target of training 10,000 workers in the first year of operation.

The Government's support for these programmes demonstrates the urgency we are placing on redeveloping the skills of our workforce for the knowledge economy. We intend to build on the foundation laid by the SRP and other programmes to evolve a comprehensive system for manpower development and lifelong learning.

The need for workers to become lifelong learners in order to remain employable in the knowledge economy has been the key area of attention in the Manpower 21 study effort launched by my Ministry in June last year. Manpower 21 will serve as the blueprint for Singapore's manpower development into the 21st century. Extensive consultations were held with industry, union and community leaders to formulate the recommendations. Initiatives to promote and support lifelong learning will form the cornerstone of the Manpower 21 plan.

The work of the Manpower 21 Committees has now been completed and the Report will be released to the public later this month. My Ministry will then provide details on the specific initiatives to be implemented.