Road map to transform training and adult education sector launched

To support companies as they transform their business and to help Singaporean workers stay competitive, a new road map was launched yesterday for the training and adult education (TAE) sector.

This industry transformation map will drive innovation, inject professionalism into jobs and raise productivity in the sector, which employs about 20,000 professionals, said SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) chief executive Ng Cher Pong.

Jobs in this sector include business development, which involves working with firms to identify training needs and solutions; trainers, who can use more technology in teaching; and curriculum developers.

This industry is a "critical supporting infrastructure" for all other industries, particularly as businesses transform, said Mr Ng.

The agency hopes the road map will encourage training providers to make learning more relevant and accessible to workers. It also aims to help them improve their courses through better gathering of feedback from trainees.

To guide professionals looking to get ahead in the TAE industry, the agency is developing a skills framework for the sector to provide information on career pathways, skills needed and training courses available. The framework is expected to be ready by the year end, said Mr Ng.

The agency will also roll out more courses on pedagogical and modular curriculum design.

It wants to bring more people under its Adult Education Professionalisation programme which recognises adult educators at three levels - associates, specialists or fellows. So far, 800 people have been through the scheme since its launch in 2015.

Mr Ng also said that to raise the productivity of training providers, his agency is developing several back-end administrative solutions for processes like payments.

Mr Anderson Tan, director of training and consultancy firm XpRienz, expects the upcoming skills framework to be a useful guide for mapping out a staff development strategy. "The skills adult educators need are changing from just delivering training to needing to understand business operations and considerations," he said.

His company has about 45 workers and specialises in food and beverage courses like food safety.

Already, he is equipping his staff with knowledge of digitisation. For example, he gets those who are not from the information technology department to work with IT staff to develop internal IT systems or e-commerce platforms for clients.

In doing so, they can better understand digital systems and use them in their training. "The framework will be helpful in providing a broad guide. On our part, we need to challenge staff with projects that help them develop those skills," he said.