Singapore is in southern Malaysia and consists of many cultures. It is a city found on the island having a population of approximately 5.607 million. The languages spoken in Singapore include English, standard Mandarin, Tamil, Malay and Mandarin Chinese. In the 19th century, it was a trading post for the British colony, but in the present, it is a success in finance, transport, and commerce around the globe (Xu, E. 2016). It encompasses Islam, Hinduism, Taoism, Christianity and Buddhism religions. They use the Singapore dollar as their currency. It is the smallest city in the globe having an investment potential. Singapore provides a ranked high education, safety, life quality, life expectancy, good healthcare systems and housing. Singapore has a refreshed system of continuing education and training (Wong, S. C. 2016). The scheme aims at preparing the workforce for the future to have a competitive labor market.
Introduction
Singapore has a well set of education systems that aims at preparing the workforce for the future. The continuing education and training plan got launched in 2008 with the aim of career hardy and competitive workforce (Lee, M., " Morris, P. 2016). It is a plan that aims at enabling the adults to continue building and deepening their skills throughout their areas of expertise. Singapore plans on continuing education and training aims at allowing the individuals to make good choices on their careers through the improved offer of training, education and guidance n career choice. They target to build a solid continuing education and training systems with many opportunities for high-quality learning. The master plan focuses on increasing the number of experts and employers by valuing and building the skills in the workforce. The Singapore master plan will be made possible by the government involving the employees and the stakeholders to help them value and develop the skills that different individuals have acquired (Authority, S. U. R. 2014).
QUESTIONS
1. Different environmental factors affected the continuing education and training in Singapore. They include the labor market, state of employment, government initiatives and challenges of workforce development. The term labor market refers to the availability of jobs on demand. In a labor market, the employees compete to be the best in offering a satisfactory job. Continuing education and training provides the outputs to meet the market demands. The labor market depends on the technology level, education level, and the training systems in Singapore. Continuing education and training is a way of improving the labor productivity to increase the competitiveness and enhance economic growth. Different individuals in Singapore go for the CET to be competitive in the labor market. Singapore employees the foreigners with good skills of work (Kwon, O. J. 2018).
State of employment is a factor that has affected the continuing education and training. State of work refers to all areas of employer versus employee relationship. An employee is hired to do different tasks and duties according to their level of expertise (Gaba, A. K., " Mishra, S. 2016). There is a deep history of unemployment in Singapore. The need for highly trained and a high level of knowledge needed, the adults in Singapore have seen the need for continuing education and training to be competitive in their area of expertise. The government has also taken part involving the stakeholders by offering career guidance education thus promoting different individual a chance to go for further learning (Leberman, S., " McDonald, L. 2016).
The government initiative is another factor that has affected the continuing education and training. These refer to the availability of power to take charge to achieve a specific objective in a given term. The government of Singapore aims to have a competitive workforce shortly. It has different programs whereby it has helped the employees to value and build skills. These have facilitated the adults to go for the continuing education and training to increase their level of expertise.
The challenge of workforce development is a factor that has influenced continuing education and training program. Workforce refers to the individuals working for a particular organization with a different level of expertise. Due to the continuous advancement in technology, people are expected to go for continuing education and training to build their level of knowledge. It is essential to be competitive in the workforce.
2. a) Competency-based training approaches get used in teaching and learning. It is based on different individual outcomes as the goals, once the individuals have learned to carry out a specific task; they move on to teach other things. There are different approaches in CBT that include performance gap identification, training and development and contextualization. The performance gap refers to how far a company has come from and what it needs to achieve their goals. To reach the targeted objectives, a company needs to close an existing gap. Training and development can fill the current holes. It is concerned by the activities that better the job performance of different individuals. Training and development facilities and organize learning to acquire the skills needed for the adequate performance of the job. Contextualization is a job approach that makes the knowledge to be useful to the position offered. It ensures that the different individuals have become competitive in their level of expertise. CBT approaches are used in early childhood education in Singapore. The teacher can choose to skip some learning modules if they notice that the learner have mastered it. The approach allows the learners to practice and refine the skills that are challenging on individual pace (Bound, H., " Rushbrook, P. 2015).
b). The workforce skills qualification in Singapore is a system that certifies, trains, develop and assess the skills for a specific workforce. There are four features in WSQ that are relevant to the approaches in CBT. They include the skill types, WSQ levels, and training and assessment pathways. Variety of skills refers to the mastery to do a specific task well. Depending on the skills required for a particular function for one to be competitive, training may be necessary. Training pathways refer to the guidelines set by the workforce skills a qualification that must be achieved at the end of the practice. The CBT approaches ensure that the training pathways are in accordance to WSQ. Assessment pathways refer to the action of considering the information about an individual before judging them. They are usually in accordance with the WSQ whereby CBT is expected to follow them in teaching in order to be competitive (LIU, S. W. C., Tan, et al, 2014). The WSQ levels refer to meeting the qualification skills in accordance with the system by the CBT system which is a mandatory.
3. The workforce skills qualification addresses different emerging issues in continuing education and training. Workforce skills qualifications is a national system that controls the continuing education and training that is designed for adult workers. It is usually available to all the workers and it does not require any academic documents. The workforce skills qualification provides training to upgrade the existing skills and make the workers to be recognized.
One of the issues includes the changing workforce face. The advancement in technology has influenced many changes in the workforce. The workforce skills qualification addresses the issue of technology by advising the people on career choice and organizing the training programs to learn the new skills. It also establishes the basis for quality learning making it possible through the government by involving the employees and the stakeholders to help them value and build the skills that different individuals have acquired. Through the WSQ levels, Continuing education and training way of improves the labor productivity thus increasing the competitiveness and enhances the economic growth.
The transnational qualification framework is a factor that has affected the continuing education and training. The transnational qualification network refers to the ability to improve, develop and assess education quality across the nations, regions and international levels (Tvaronavičienė, M., et al, 2017). Workforce skills qualification is accountable for monitoring the continuing education and training to make sure that they are in line with the required standards. The WSQ makes sure that the pathways of the CET meet the standards required by the transnational qualification framework. They organize different training programs to ensure that the individuals in Singapore are competitive with the other nation. These increase the level of expertise on various individuals and across the countries.
4. Non-workplace skills qualification is a system that controls the continuing education and training that get designed for learners in early childhood industry (Steiner, L. 2015). Different principles are relevant to old childhood industry in Singapore which includes; holistic development, reflective learning and transfer of knowledge. Comprehensive education refers to the self-actualization of an individual (Chan, M. 2017). Students are helped to be the most that they can be by addressing the needs of the life of a child such as physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, creative and intellectual needs. The teachers in the schools make sure that the holistic needs of the child get met by making the child do physical exercise and teaching about the religion for spiritual purposes.
Reflective learning refers to having a deep thought to develop critical thinking skills (Beech, N., McGill, I., " Brockbank, A. 2017). These are essential in early childhood education because. It has a role in improving the future performance whereby the learner can analyze their experience. This learning style gets used early childhood education where the teacher makes the students to get involved by asking them what they have learned concerning the lesson (Taylor, E. W. 2017). Memorizing the dates, facts, and formulas make the learner be active in work processes and build creative thinking.
5. There are different features of non-workforce skills qualification that helped Germany in workforce development (Flin, R., " O'Connor, P. 2017). The elements of the WSQ national training system include training organizations, apprenticeship, funding, accreditation agencies, competency, and legislation. Skill is the proficiency to do a specific task successfully (Findlow, S., " L Hayes, A. 2016). With the continuous advancement in technology, German makes sure that their workers meet a certain level of expertise. It is made possible by taking their workers for training to be competent in their level of knowledge. The employees are encouraged by the stakeholders to value and build the skills that different individuals have acquired (Pardo‐Hernandez, H., et al, 2018). These have made the nation to be competitive in various sectors.
The government funds the national training systems in Germany. The availability of funds makes it easy for various companies and organizations to take their employees for training. The training is meant for adults whereby they aim to help them build their skills and values. There are no academic documents needed for the workers to attend the training. The trained workers, therefore, apply the knowledge learned and skills from the instruction to the company making it more productive. The skills learned can be passed to the other employers who did not go for the training. In Germany, learning is a continuous process.
There is legislation in the national training systems in Germany. The bill makes the laws that govern the national training systems in Germany. The national training systems in Germany get founded on the principles laid out by the bill. The statutes and followed to ensure that different individuals are competent in their place of work (Riphahn, R. T., " Zibrowius, M. 2016). The rules get founded by the government whereby they govern the skill levels.
Apprenticeship is a feature in the national training systems in Germany. Learning is a term referring to training new practitioners in a particular profession (Billett, S., et al, 2014). The training in Germany may encompass reading, classwork and get educated on the job. The national training systems make sure that the practitioners can obtain a license in their field of professionalism. These have made the workforce to be available in Germany and the practitioners to reach a high level of competence (Doerr, A., " Kruppe, T. 2015). It has been essential in skilled labor.
Conclusion
In conclusion, continuing education and training aims at enabling the individuals to make good choices on their careers through the improved offer of training, education and guidance n career choice. Different environmental factors affected the continuing education and training in Singapore; labor market, state of employment, government initiatives and challenges of workforce development. Training organizations, apprenticeship, funding, accreditation agencies, competency, and legislation has led to the development of workforce in Germany.
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