Distinguished Guests

A year ago, I was here at the Bukit Merah Skills Development Centre with Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong to officiate at its opening. We were here under very different circumstances. The economic downturn in 1998 had injected an air of urgency to re-training and skills upgrading. It was quite clear that workers needed skills upgrading to keep their jobs or find new ones as the economy dipped. Today, we are assembled here in a different context and with a new buoyant mood. The focus now is no longer on surviving a recession. The economy has clearly turned around. The focus is on the long-term development of our workforce in response to the new challenges of a knowledge-based economy or New Economy.

One of the demands of the New Economy is the pace of change. Not since the industrial revolution has the world seen massive changes taking place at such a rapid pace. Businessmen like my Parliamentary colleague, Mr Inderjit Singh, talks of closing multi-million dollar deals at Internet speed. Companies no longer draw up 5-year strategic plans. Today, strategic plans are good for may be 6 months before revamps are needed. Product life cycle is now measured in months and not years. Traditional barriers are rapidly being demolished. Bricks-and-mortar businesses are morphing into e-businesses or clicks-and-mortar ventures. Super mergers, such as the AOL-Time Warner merger, are creating a wealth of new business opportunities and forcing old players to re-think their strategies. Old rules are breaking down fast. The spirit of the new rules is that "anything is possible"! The phenomenal success of technology start-ups in Silicon Valley, Hong Kong and right here in Singapore, are timely reminders of the rewards to those who catch the rising tide and adapt well to the pace of change.

The rapid pace of change has also shortened the shelf life of our knowledge and skills forcing us to engage in continuous knowledge and skills upgrading to stay relevant. Increasingly, companies are recruiting skilled workers for their technological capability and innovativeness. Yet many people are not seized with the urgency of skills upgrading. A simple survey by my Ministry last year showed that about half of the workers surveyed did not engage in training or learning for the past 3 years. In the New Economy, 3 years is a long time. Long enough for skills to be obsolete. Complacency and an unwillingness to respond and adapt proactively to changes are fatal flaws in the New Economy. We must update our knowledge and build up new skills. Otherwise, the tide will rise and swirl around us, leaving us stranded rather than riding high on the crest.

Life-long learning is the only way for us to stay on top of the changes sweeping across the globe. It is the only way to maintain our competitive advantage and ability to innovate, add value and create wealth. It underpins the culture of enterpreneurship, business risk-taking and creativity which we hope to nurture.

Hence, the development of our manpower resources is a high priority area, next to the education of the younger generation. Manpower 21 sums up our efforts to put in place a comprehensive system for workers to upgrade and update their skills continuously. The government is working with employers, unions, community groups and educational institutions to establish the School of Lifelong Learning. This is the framework to mass-customise training opportunities for workers. Initiatives under the School of Lifelong Learning include Skills Redevelopment Programme, Strategic Manpower Conversion Programme as well as Continuing Education and Training programmes by ITEs, Polytechnics and Universities. It also includes the establishment of a National Skills Recognition System and the provision of timely and relevant information on training and employment opportunities through one-stop career centres and the internet. Our target is to make skills upgrading easily accessible to all.

The School of Lifelong Learning is very much an effort to make Singaporeans "New Economy ready". We can create the infrastructure and fund the programmes. But the result will depend on whether workers and employers fully embrace and practise lifelong learning. A mindset and attitudinal change towards lifelong learning is critical to ensure that we remain employable amidst the tidal waves of change. Learning must be for life, regardless of age, in good times as well as in bad times. To encourage a shift in mindset, we will organise a Singapore Learning Festival at the end of August. This event will not just highlight the opportunities for CET but also emphasise the personal responsibility and the rewards arising from lifelong learning effort.

Employers too must take responsibility in investing in the training and upgrading of their workers. How a company adjusts to changing economic conditions is also dependent upon its ability to facilitate the training and re-training of its workers. In other words, a company remains successful only if its employees are always equipped with the skills and knowledge to stay at the forefront of their business area. Employers cannot just wait for the Government to launch training programmes. They must pro-actively promote training by developing their own in-house training programmes or engaging in work re-design to make it easier for their workers to be sent for training. The survival of companies in an intensely competitive business climate is governed by this new rule – "train, train and train".

For workers, lifelong learning is not a burden but the key to life-long employability. Workers must also take responsibility for skills upgrading and training. Some countries have sought to protect workers from unemployment by way of legislation. This point was made by DPM Dr Tony Tan at the Administrative Service Dinner and Promotion Ceremony two days ago. DPM highlighted the paradox that the more a government tries to protect workers from retrenchment, the higher the unemployment. DPM cited lower unemployment in the US, as compared to Europe and Japan, as an example. Economies with freer labour market practices are more successful in creating employment, keeping unemployment down and generating growth.

This paradox underscores the need for workers to acquire skills which are needed. Laws will not be able to protect jobs in this era of globalisation and borderless world. Companies, including those doing well, will restructure and relocate to seize new opportunities or to survive. This will cause job losses. We should review our employment practices to ensure that workers are better prepared for such changes. For instance, the introduction of portable medical benefits should now be speeded up. It will offer workers much better health care benefits than the current system. However, workers lacking in skills will still remain vulnerable to unemployment regardless of well-intentioned employment practices and laws. The recent announcement by the German Government to import 20,000 high-tech workers is a good example. Germany has nearly 4.3 million unemployed. Yet it cannot fill the vacancies in the high-tech industries because many of the unemployed lacked skills for the new jobs. So Germany has to recruit from other countries. We should try to avoid the German experience. We must make every effort to ensure that Singaporeans can upgrade their skills and are able to take on the new jobs. We must avoid the emergence of a growing number of unemployable people. The way to do so is through life-long learning. In the New Economy, workers must also assume personal responsibility to learn skills in demand so that they remain employable despite the rapid changes. This may require learning new skills so that they can be re-deployed to jobs in new sectors.

Our effort to promote life-long learning will require the full support of employers and workers. Strong tripartism had served us well to maintain harmonious labour relations. This is important and requires continuing effort. But there is a new dimension to tripartism in the New Economy. Today, tripartism has a critical role to nurture and enhance the capabilities of workers. We must ignite a new tripartite spirit to promote lifelong learning with employers, unions and workers making a dedicated and joint commitment to partner the Government in elevating the capabilities of workers to a new plane.

The launch of the Singapore Learning Logo today will add momentum to the lifelong learning effort in Singapore. The logo is a symbolic representation of lifelong learning as a way of life. It calls for the personal commitment of Singaporeans as well as that of our partners to transform ourselves into knowledge workers.

I would like to encourage every Singaporean to make a personal pledge to lifelong learning – to upgrade and renew our skills continuously. Let us venture with confidence, determination and perseverance to acquire the knowledge and skills for the New Economy.

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