8. Awareness of and response to TAE policies

The SkillsFuture initiative aims to prepare Singaporeans for the future economy and inclusive society. Skills upgrading and deepening are essential to ensure a highly-skilled and competitive workforce. As such, high quality training and adult education is needed to keep Singaporeans competitive in the labour market and be future-ready for the changing work. Since the launch of the SkillsFuture movement in 2015, many programmes, initiatives and policies are introduced to support TPs and TAE professionals to design and deliver quality training that is accessible and relevant to Singaporeans. For example:

• Capability Development Grant (CDG): a financial assistance program that helps a business owner build his/her capabilities across 10 key business areas, ranging from adopting new technologies to raising service standards, from overseas expansion to staff training etc. This grant lends support to a wide range of capabilities that upgrade the initiatives to help the business grow locally and globally (CDG Grant Program, 2017).

• Enhanced Training Support for SMEs: enables SMEs that sponsor their employees (Singaporean Citizens and PRs) to enjoy increased course fee funding and absentee payroll cap (SkillsFuture, 2017).

• English @ Workplace Sheme: Encourages companies to provide customised English training at their workplace, so as to help workers perform better at work and access better training opportunities.

• iN.LEARN 2020: initiative to drive the use of blended learning to enhance the quality, accessibility and effectiveness of learning. It helps TPs leverage technology and innovation in training design and delivery to better serve the needs of enterprises and individuals, and reach out to more customers. In terms of AEs, it helps AEs to grow their knowledge and expertise in their design, development and delivery of blended learning, which in turns increase their market value and lead to more business engagement (SkillsFuture, 2019).

• SkillsFuture Study Award: provides opportunities to develop and deepen specialist skills needed by future economic growth sectors or in areas of demand. It also provides opportunities for those who already have deep specialist skills to develop other competencies (SkillsFuture, 2019a).

• SkillsFuture Earn and Learn Programme: This work-study programme provided fresh graduates from polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) a head-start in careers related to their discipline of study. It provides them with more opportunities, after graduation, to build on the skills and knowledge they acquired in school, and better supports their transition into the workforce Participating employers can recruit local fresh talent and prepare them to take up suitable job roles (SkillsFuture 2019b).

• SkillsFuture Credit: aims to encourage individual ownership of skills development and lifelong learning. All Singaporeans aged 25 and above will receive an opening credit of S$500. The subsidy can be used for approved courses. This helps TPs reach out more customers and serve the needs of individuals (SkillsFuture, 2019c).

• Training and Adult Education Professional Competency Model (TAEPCM): a skills reference framework with clear descriptions of competencies and proficiencies to guide skills deepening and broadening efforts; navigate and chart career pathways across key CET functional domains; benchmark standards of capability development programmes; align skills development efforts with organisational goals (IAL, 2016). This model is now replaced by TAE Skills Framework (SkillsFuture, 2018b).