Beyond competence, towards mastery of skills

Beyond competence, towards mastery of skills

Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Wednesday highlighted the importance of lifelong learning and respect for the mastery of skills, as Singapore enters a new phase of development. He was speaking at the opening of the Lifelong Learning Institute. Here's an excerpt of his speech:

WE ARE essentially embarking on a new phase in our development in education, and as a nation. We have built a school and tertiary education system that is amongst the best-regarded internationally. That remains a real strength for the future. But as we achieve each new stage of development in education, aspirations go up and new possibilities emerge. That's a positive, and we must make the most of these possibilities.

In our next wave of development, we will build a first-rate system of continuing education and training: learning throughout life. It will intertwine education and the world of work in ways that strengthen and enrich both. It will enable every Singaporean to maximise his or her potential, from young and through life.

We are no longer a developing economy. But we are not yet an advanced economy, with the skills, productivity and median incomes equivalent to those of the leading nations.

In our next phase, we will make Singapore an advanced economy, and ensure us of a fair society, with opportunities for every Singaporean to maximise his or her potential and lead fulfilling lives.

We must aspire to move beyond competence and doing a regular job, towards mastering skills. We must cherish and respect the mastery of skills - the knowledge, practice and passion that goes into mastering skills, no matter what the job. That has to be our ethos as a society, starting from young, as employers and colleagues at the workplace, in how we respond as consumers, and in the way we regard each other as fellow-citizens. It's about respecting the innate dignity of every citizen, and the sense of fulfilment that comes from developing a skill and being valued for your contributions to society.

The Aspire (Applied Study in Polytechnics and ITE Review) Committee has made a bold set of recommendations to strengthen opportunities for polytechnic and ITE students to progress and achieve their aspirations.

Our CET (Continuing Education and Training) Masterplan 2020 will also revamp continuous education and training to enable all Singaporeans, regardless of qualifications, to build and deepen their skills throughout their careers.

We will now bring together Aspire's work and the new CET Masterplan, and take them forward. As Prime Minister announced at his recent National Day Rally, we will set up a tripartite council to drive this next phase in developing our people.

We will soon launch this new "SkillsFuture" Council. SkillsFuture encapsulates the journey we are embarking on: We want to help everyone develop the skills relevant to the future, and we must build a future based on mastery, in every job.

Everyone has to take ownership of this SkillsFuture journey.

First and foremost, it is about each of us as individuals. We must take ownership of our own learning and development, and control our destinies. The Government will help by ensuring a broad menu of educational and training options - from young, and continuing through your career. But we will also develop a rich framework of educational and career guidance, starting with our secondary schools, moving on to our JCs, polytechnics and ITEs - and accompanying us through life.

Even when you are in secondary school, it is good to have a vague idea of what your aptitudes are, and what you might be interested in. Not choosing a course just because you qualified based on your A-level score or GPA (grade point average), but because it appeals to you, you feel you will be interested enough in the field to keep learning, to keep progressing and applying yourself with passion.

Culture of lifelong learning

THE journey we are taking also requires a broader culture of lifelong learning. Not just learning for the next examination when you are young, not just learning for the immediate needs of the job. In some countries, you walk into a bookshop or a library, you see older folk coming in and browsing, going out with a book. It may be to pick up a new interest or pursue an old one, but it gives them a sense of fulfilment. When we have that broader culture of learning, at home or in the community, when people are learning not just for the immediate task or needs of the job, but because it gives satisfaction, it brings a whole new tone that supports lifelong learning by individuals, from young to old.

Next, employers must take ownership: developing every worker, and valuing their contributions as they advance in skills.

This is probably the greatest challenge ahead in SkillsFuture.

We do not have the advantage of the Swiss or the Germans who developed this from mediaeval times. They developed a deep tradition of collaboration between firms and educational institutions. We do not have that tradition. Neither do we have the tradition of companies working closely together to develop skills in a whole industry. We have to develop this in the next phase of our development.

The Government will work closely with industry and unions to build a future based on advanced skills. We will develop Sectoral Manpower Strategies that identify future skills and needs, and develop clear progression pathways for workers to advance based on skills in each sector, so that employees see the rewards in developing their skills. The WDA will work closely with industry partners to enhance the existing Singapore Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ) frameworks, to develop the scaffolding of both specialised and broad skills - vertical and horizontal skills - that underpin career progression in each sector.

We should not develop a huge skills bureaucracy to implement this. This cannot be a top-down process. The markets are too fluid for that; technology is changing too quickly. Employers and industry panels must drive this process and Government will provide strong support for them.

What we have to avoid is a vicious cycle, which we sometimes see today in a tight labour market - where employers do not invest in workers because they are not sure they are going to stay. And the worker feeling that "they are not serious about investing in me, they are not really developing my capabilities beyond what I can do today, I better leave".

We've got to avoid that vicious cycle, and the way to do it is first, recognising as some employers have found - and if you look at countries like Germany, they have certainly found this - companies that invest in their workers and show them a clear career progression pathway are better able to retain their workers.

Raising the water level of skills

BUT we have to accept that there will be some mobility, and sometimes you lose your best people. That's why we need a sectoral and national skills framework, and why we must get most employers to invest in their workers. That's how we raise the water level of skills for all employees, so that all boats are raised including the SMEs. You might not keep all your employees, but when you hire new people, they come with skills because other companies have invested in their employees, and you invest further in them. And as people move from one job to another within the same industry, there is a better chance that they stay on a path that keeps building up their skills.

The third key group in SkillFuture is educational and training providers. They have to take ownership too, see it as part of their responsibility to prepare students for life and help them upgrade along the way. We are off to a good start, but we need a much deeper and richer industry of training providers, matchmakers, coaches and mentors.

Our educational institutions, including our universities, will play important roles in SkillsFuture. And we have to move beyond thinking there are simple divides between education and work, between pre-employment education and post-employment training, or between nurturing broad skills and developing specialist knowledge. These divides are too simple for the world that's evolving before us. Too simple a divide because of the way technology is changing, jobs are changing and the way education must change if we are to prepare people well for life.

Good jobs of the future

TECHNOLOGY and new approaches to work are blurring the old distinctions between "thinkers" and "makers". The good jobs of the future will involve both thinking and making, and constant learning - up and down the line and in every field, whether in nursing, in building maintenance, in engineering and factory operations, in the whole digital space or in consumer businesses and professional services.

Designed well, the practical is not at the expense of the academic - the intertwining enriches both. The best educational institutions, like MIT, are precisely about helping students make that connection between the intellectual and the practical, and hence developing their potential in life.

Our educational institutions will also be important anchors in post-employment training, or CET. They will set quality benchmarks for CET delivery. They have expertise and standards of their own to maintain, and their faculty will want to ensure that they are up-to-date with developments in their own fields.

And a whole new vista is opening up in the way in which tertiary institutions are providing for online learning - anywhere and at any stage of life. It does not involve everyone getting a full degree. Some may go for bite-sized modules, some deeper area of knowledge they need at work, or something they want to study purely out of interest.

Private educational institutions (PEIs) too will play a valuable role as we grow our CET landscape. But some re-orientation is going to be required, to ensure that PEIs' programmes are robust, industry-relevant, and beneficial to the people who take their courses. Last year, we had about half of the total private degree enrolment taking business degree programmes. An oversupply of degrees in any one field is never ideal. The market has begun to differentiate between degrees that carry their full worth in knowledge and skills, and those that do not.

A re-orientation in the PEI industry will help it make a positive contribution, by adding diversity and helping working adults in particular, to obtain deeper skills in niche areas or to obtain degrees later in life. What we have to avoid is the degree mills for people fresh out of school that we've seen in many countries. That route will do our young a disservice.

The Government will be a key enabler in all these efforts, by providing resource support and helping to coordinate and tighten the linkages between all players.

A meritocracy through life

THERE is a real strength in our culture that remains relevant to the future. We keep looking for better in our children and grandchildren.

I recently met some of the oldest pioneers in my constituency, so that I could thank them for what they had done for Singapore and present them with their Pioneer Generation packages. Many came with their families, because they all took pride in this. One elderly lady had just one thing to say to me. She pointed at each of her grandsons standing behind her: "He is at NUS, he is at NTU..." It had deep meaning. She had succeeded in life. That spirit must remain with us - wanting to help the next generation to do better. But we know that the way in which we achieve our aspirations will have to evolve.

The qualifications we obtain in our youthful years are not the final point. They are not irrelevant - they reflect determination and an ability to learn. But we have to look beyond these early qualifications, and recognise that a whole set of skills matter in how well we perform: applying knowledge in real-world situations that keep changing; developing deeper know-how through practice; collaborating as a team and taking the heat together; or the ability to look for opportunity in the face of challenge. That's true about career success in every field and whichever the qualifications we come with - whether degrees or diplomas or ITE certificates.

What we really have to evolve towards is a meritocracy through life. Not a meritocracy based only on what you have achieved at 18 or 24, but a meritocracy through life, where you are assessed on your performance at every stage of your life, regardless of where you graduated from or what you started with. That is a true and richer meritocracy, and we must aim to develop that. And we can, because we have the culture of aspirations, we have the resources and we are going to work together to achieve this.

We must build on our strengths and move with vigour in this next phase of our development, towards an advanced economy and fair society. Where every Singaporean can discover and achieve his or her full potential, everyone can take pride in building deep skills and be valued for their contributions, and every job respected regardless of the uniform you wear.


This article was first published on September 20 2014.
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