Companies in Singapore get 60 percent of the total amount of the direct training subsidies provided by the Government annually for conducting in-house training programs and apprenticeship schemes, said Ong Ye Kung, Education Minister (Higher Education and Skills) yesterday.

The total estimated amount of life-long learning subsidies is S$400 million annually, of which 40 percent is allocated by the Ministry of Education and SkillsFuture Singapore for training initiated by individual workers, Yahoo! News Singapore reports.

These details were revealed by Ong when responding to a question by West Coast GRC MP Foo Mee Har on progress made by Singapore in skills upgradation of workers and how they perform globally. The region compares favourably in the OECD, with 62 percent Singaporean workforce participating in structured training programs compared to the average 55 percent within Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

The republic ranks higher than Australia, Japan, France and Korea but is below the United States, the UK, Finland and Sweden. “We are therefore not doing badly by international standards, and many companies do take the skills upgrading of their workers very seriously.”

Ong further expressed hopes saying, “We can certainly do better – especially in encouraging SMEs to do so, and for more companies to offer structured in-house training and apprenticeship schemes.”