Proportion of SkillsFuture Credits Courses Taken with Direct Relevance to Individuals' Ongoing or Future Employment
Ministry of EducationSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns the proportion of SkillsFuture Credit courses relevant to employment and whether conditions should be introduced to ensure such relevance. Mr Shawn Loh inquired about measuring the transition from a lifelong learning culture to industry-relevant skills acquisition for better jobs. Senior Minister of State Janil Puthucheary explained that the $4,000 mid-career top-up is already restricted to curated courses with employment objectives, whereas the initial $500 encourages general lifelong learning. He highlighted that eight in 10 learners find their training relevant to their work and that the government maps manpower needs with industry partners to curate programmes. The Ministry continues to monitor job posting data and review policies to enhance career outcomes, accessibility, and the quality of supported training.
Transcript
7 Mr Shawn Loh asked the Minister for Education (a) what proportion of courses taken in 2024 with support from SkillsFuture Credits have had direct relevance to the respective individuals' ongoing or future areas of employment; and (b) whether the Ministry has considered introducing conditions for the use of Credits to ensure such relevance, such as requiring courses to be recommended by Government-appointed Skills Development Partners.
The Senior Minister of State for Education (Dr Janil Puthucheary) (for the Minister for Education): Mr Speaker, I invite the Member to refer to the Ministry of Education's (MOE’s) response to Question Nos 40 and 41, filed by the Member for written answer in the Order Paper for 5 November 2025, where MOE has addressed this issue in detail.
But I will provide some further details, specific to the question that Mr Shawn Loh has also filed for today.
There are conditions imposed on the types of courses that the SkillsFuture Credit can be used for, to ensure that the courses taken meet our policy intent. For example, the $4,000 SkillsFuture Credit (Mid-Career) top-up targets mid-careerists aged 40 and above, and can only be used for curated courses with stronger employment objectives. On the other hand, immediate relevance to employment is not the objective of the opening SkillsFuture Credit of $500, which is intended to encourage lifelong learning and skills development across different life stages. Overall, across SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG)-supported training, eight in 10 learners find the course content relevant to their work.
Mr Speaker: Mr Loh.
Mr Shawn Loh (Jalan Besar): Mr Speaker, I thank the Senior Minister of State for the response. And I have read in the earlier replies over the last few days. I have also read the responses to other Parliamentary Questions filed by other Members of Parliament (MPs).
Many MPs across both sides of the aisle have focused on the utilisation of SkillsFuture Credits and how to increase the utilisation. I think that is a wrong question. I think we should be asking how SkillsFuture Credits are helping to address the greater economic challenge of this time, which is how it improves the culture of lifelong learning so that it leads to better skills acquisition for better jobs.
I take the Senior Minister of State's point that the SkillsFuture Credits are first and foremost, meant to improve the culture of lifelong learning. To that end, I would like to ask the Senior Minister of State whether the Ministry or the Government has measured the improvement in the culture of lifelong learning and whether it can also measure the translation from that culture of lifelong learning to a culture of skills acquisition that is industry relevant.
And for future tranches of the SkillsFuture credits, would the Senior Minister of State agree that it would be better for our taxpayers' dollars to help encourage Singaporeans to acquire those skills that can help them get good jobs?
Dr Janil Puthucheary: Sir, I thank Mr Loh for his questions as well as his considered view on what the SkillsFuture Credit and its interventions should be targeted to achieving. The short answer to all of his questions is yes and we will continue to try to do better and develop more data on these issues.
We do already work along this track. Indeed, we have part of the funding focused on developing the culture, and then part of the funding focused on employment opportunity development; in other words, in mid-career to create the opportunity for someone to transition into another career and have fulfilling employment as a result. We work with the sector agencies and with industry partners. We map out manpower needs to identify jobs and skills gaps. And we do want to then curate the training programmes with the training providers to close those gaps.
Is the culture of lifelong learning improving? The data would suggest it is, if you look at the number of courses, number of training providers and the demand for that type of effort on the supply side. And there, we do also have to look at some component of utilisation of the SkillsFuture Credit, perhaps as a marker of the take-up of lifelong learning opportunities. I take his point that that is not the only metric that we should focus on.
We also look at job posting data. We do research together with the economic agencies to then make sure that we are achieving the kind of outcomes that he articulated. Of course, the provision of training through SkillsFuture is not the only thing that then leads to the economic outcomes that he has focused on, but it is something that we have to contribute towards. We review our policies, we review our programmes to enhance the accessibility, quality and outcomes of our SSG-supported careers. So, I thank him for his suggestions and indeed, these are things that we are working towards.