Mr Pritam Singh (Aljunied): Thank you, Speaker. I thank the Minister. I think this is a subject I spoke about in my Budget speech last year as well, seeking details on the number of individual Singaporeans who have benefited from CTP.
In view of the revision or the review of the ITMs towards ITM 2025, does CTP feature very prominently in the review? Because as I mentioned last year, my view is it can be an important conduit through which locals upskill effectively with new skills that have a direct knock-on effect on their companies and, of course, on enterprise, in general.
My second question is specifically on the 990 locals and the 140 companies that the Minister spoke of earlier. How many of them received the highest cap of funding at 90%?
Dr Tan See Leng: The CTP is one of the multitude of programmes that we have available in ensuring that we are able to nuance the JTM to match what we have actually set out to achieve under our ITMs. I believe that the Minister for Trade and Industry, Mr Gan Kim Yong, will provide an update in terms of the effectiveness of the programmes at a later stage.
Suffice to say, we have got a whole host of other programmes like the Company Training Committee (CTC) programme administered by NTUC. Then, WSG works on the Career Conversion Programme (CCP) in helping many of our mid-career job-seekers who want to switch careers. So, it is one of the many programmes that we have available.
As far as the numbers in terms of the 140 companies and the 990 locals are concerned, how much of the funding of up to 90% we have been able to accord, at this particular point in time, I do not have the numbers, but I am happy to provide the details subsequently.
One other point, and I hope that the Leader of the Opposition may want to take note, is that in the last two years during COVID-19, because of border restrictions, the number of companies applying for this particular programme to allow either their employees to go overseas for training or to bring foreign expertise here, has been significantly curtailed. Hence, that speaks for the very low take-up rate over the last two years.
But as border controls ease, as we start opening up, I would expect that the numbers would start to go up again, all the way until the end of the programme in 2024.
Ministry of Manpower
5 April 2022
https://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/sprs3topic?reportid=oral-answer-2823
Office of the Leader of the Opposition 