It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the fourth PIAAC International Conference, which is being held in Asia for the first time. We would like to thank OECD for giving us this honour to host the conference.
The government is increasing the number of childcare places to meet rising demand from childcare services from parents as more mothers return to the workforce. To meet the capacity expansion, another 4,000 early childhood professionals such as centre leaders, preschool teachers, toddler educarers and infant care educarers are required until 2020.
It is my pleasure to join you at the Lifelong Learning Festival 2016. The Lifelong Learning Festival has been around for many years. I remember when I was a much younger civil servant; the Lifelong Learning Festival was really a festival. We were teaching all kinds of leisure and recreational skills and then somebody said that the Lifelong Learning Festival should really be about vocational skills, skills that one can use to earn a living and so the concept changed.
The 6th Adult Learning Symposium 2016 has been an enriching and fruitful journey. Now that we are at its close, I would like to thank all of you, both speakers and participants, for making this event such a resounding success.
I started the Adult Learning Symposium back in 2008 when I was the Chief Executive Officer of Singapore Workforce Development Agency. Therefore, now years later, I am happy to join you today for the Adult Learning Symposium 2016.
I am pleased to attend today’s Singapore Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ) graduation ceremony for 605 students from the Institute of Technical Education, Nanyang, Ngee Ann, Singapore and Temasek Polytechnics. This is a significant milestone not only for these five Post-Secondary Education Institutes (PSEIs) and the graduands, but also for the Process WSQ framework. I will elaborate on this later.