THE Lifelong Learning Endowment Fund Advisory Council (LLEFAC) has made suggestions on prioritising the budget for the Continuing Education and Training (CET) Masterplan.

Announced earlier by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the masterplan emphasises lifelong education for adults to uphold the competitiveness of Singapore's workforce. It involves government spending of about $400 million a year.

'With globalisation and intensive competition for information, capital and talent, Singapore's economy is undergoing restructuring, and this creates new higher value-add jobs, rendering lower value-add jobs obsolete,' said LLEFAC chairman Bill Chang.

The approach set out by LLEFAC, an industry panel with representation from self-help groups and the union movement, includes:

• Strengthening interaction between the Workforce Development Authority (WDA) and industry players, including major CET centres and industry associations. This calls for constant feedback by the industry and constant improvement of CET offerings.
• Taking a strategic view of CET and continuing to prioritise its resources to focus on growth areas and sectors. These include manufacturing, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and tourism.
• Investing more resources and marrying commercial discipline with better market responsiveness to strengthen CET centres and encourage competition and innovation. LLEFAC also suggests WDA collaborate with private and public training centres on setting up and developing CET centres. This will help ensure CET is not the monopoly of any one sector or player.

WDA yesterday launched a National CET Public Education Campaign called Learning for Life, Advancing with skills.

This article was first published in The Business Times on October 09, 2008.