NATIONAL SKILLS RECOGNITION SYSTEM (Progress)

Mr Seng Han Thong asked the Minister for Manpower if he will state what progress the National Skills Recognition System has made.

The Minister for Manpower (Dr Lee Boon Yang): Sir, the National Skills Recognition System (NSRS) is a key recommendation of the Manpower 21 report. The system provides a national framework for the definition, acquisition and certification of job skills competencies for our workforce. It will be industry-driven, accessible to workers through an open entry and modular approach, and provide for training and acquisition of skills at different levels to establish skills progression for the workforce.

Establishing clear skills standards will potentially benefit many workers who are holding skilled or semi-skilled jobs, such as clerical, sales and service personnel, production operators and even cleaners. Currently, most of these jobs do not have clear competency standards. Implementing a national skills recognition system for the workforce is an enormous task. Apart from the large numbers involved, we need to cater to different industries and within industries, different occupations. To succeed, a concerted effort involving all key Government agencies and industry bodies is needed.

Currently, the system is being piloted in 3 industries - hotel, marine and cleaning. The pilot phase aims to test the robustness of the system and fine-tune it for the comprehensive launch to all industries. To date, 19 skills standards have been developed for the pilot industries. For the hotel industry, for example, the standards include servicing guestrooms, providing western-style food and beverage services, handling guest arrivals, processing room reservations and so on. The assessment centres and training programmes for the pilot industries are in the process of being established. Our aim is to train and certify 3,000 workers in these three pilot industries. We hope to extend the National Skills Recognition System to other industries by the second quarter of this year.

Mr Seng Han Thong (Ang Mo Kio): Sir, what are the other industries which the Ministry has in mind that their skills can be certified in the next 1-2 years?

Dr Lee Boon Yang: Sir, our intention, eventually, is to cover all the industries, but we want to do it in stages. As I have said in my main answer, the National Skills Recognition System will only work if it is a collaborative and joint effort. It cannot work just purely as a Government initiative. The industries themselves have to come together and agree that they want to have formal standards for skill competencies for all their workers in the various occupations. We are in discussion with the various industry groups and, as and when they are ready, they will be brought on board to implement a national skills recognition system for their particular industry.