Gov’t to provide support to adult education, ITE grads to address socioeconomic challenges

Strengthening the SkillsFuture programme is a crucial part of it.

The government will provide more support to adult education and ITE grads to address socioeconomic challenges like wage disparity, Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said during his speech at the Economic Society of Singapore’s annual dinner.

According to Wong, the disruption from the advancement of AI is leaving workers vulnerable, including professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) are finding their existing roles have become obsolete. Older workers in their 40s and 50s are especially vulnerable.

To address this the government plans to strengthen its SkillsFuture initiative. 

In 2015, SkillsFuture was launched to help upskill workers. Wong announced that further investments in adult education and training will be made to help them grow their capacities while still being able to live comfortably.

“Training allowances for mid-career workers who take time off to pursue full-time training, such as longer-form courses. Because when you take time off, not just for one, or two days, but for months, who is going to pay your salary? So, training allowances will help them pay their bills while they take time off to study and to get a significant new injection of skills,” Wong added.

Aside from that, better job matching, career planning, and guidance will be further introduced in the revamped SkillsFuture program.

Wage gap

Wong also addressed the issue of income inequality and uplifting the lower-wage workers and wealth inequality and taxing the rich.

Wong said they are planning to focus on ITE students and graduates.

“There has been a growing divergence between the starting salaries of graduates from ITE, Polytechnics, and Autonomous Universities over the past decade. Their starting salaries have all increased meaningfully over time in real terms, but those with higher qualifications, especially our University graduates, have been pulling further ahead,” Wong said

Wong said there is a wage disparity between those who engage in knowledge-based work like managers and professionals versus those who engage in more “hands” and “heart” work, like technicians and service workers.

The government plans to reduce these gaps for each industry by redesigning jobs, raising productivity, upgrading skills, and establishing better progression pathways. 

“We have made good progress in certain sectors like pre-school education and nursing, and we are looking at how we can do the same for other services and professional trades. With these industry efforts, and working closely with our educators at ITE, we aim to push up the starting salaries of our ITE graduates,” Wong said.

ITE graduates will also have support to upgrade their skills over time. Some of what the government is looking at is getting ITE graduates to enrol in a work-study diploma or a part-time diploma and gain industry-relevant skills.  

“To be clear, we will not be able to completely remove wage disparities in the economy. But too large a wage difference will create problems. It is partly the source of education anxiety and stress as well because parents and children worry about getting to the ‘right’ pathways that will lead to the ‘right’ jobs for the future,” Wong said.