SkillsFuture Movement: Singapore's Answer to Upskilling, Reskilling, and Lifelong Learning

Published 10 June 2025

Please watch the video "SkillsFuture Singapore looking to improve quality, accessibility of courses" prior to reading the blog below.

The video you just watched is published by the Singaporean Public Broadcast Service and describes this year's updates to SkillsFuture Singapore, a national learning initiative. This learning program was started by the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) in 2015 to help citizens of Singapore upgrade their professional skills (upskill), change their profession (reskill), and to increase citizens' participation in lifelong learning. The staff of this program monitors the emerging job trends and, together with employers, educators, and unions, develops future career pathways and educational courses for all Singaporeans. This program offers comprehensive employment support, career guidance, aptitude assessments, and grants citizens access twenty-seven thousand online, in-person, or blended courses in different economic employment sectors. Every citizen of Singapore can access SkillsFuture via an online MySkillsFuture portal, a user-friendly website where everyone has their own secure digital identity and owns government-subsidized learning credits, can discover courses, can assess his/her/their work aptitudes or research new economic employment growth sectors, and can set future career objectives and receive tailored work recommendations. (Lim et al., 2024)

The SkillsFuture SG movement and website serve as an exemplary way in which a country can use the power of evolving internet media and online social networks to positively contribute to the lives of its' citizens. The benefits provided by the SkillsFuture Singapore program are numerous and include improvement in the country's rate of employment, enhancement of the country's upskilling efforts, and increase in the employment of disadvantaged individuals. (Lim et al., 2024)

The book chapter "Future-Skilling the Workforce: SkillsFuture movement in Singapore" mentions these statistics:

By 2021, the SkillsFuture Movement was in its 6^th year of implementation. The training participation rate of the resident labor force was 50% in 2021, as com­pared to 35% in 2015 (Ministry of Manpower, 2021). As of 31 December 2021, 27% of eligible Singaporeans have used their SkillsFuture Credit; and 24,000 enterprises and 660,000 individuals participated in SkillsFuture-supported reskill­ing programs, an increase of 22% and 71% respectively from 2020 (Ministry of Education, 2021). (Gog et al., 2024, p.523)

The Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) website cites powerful statistics regrading SkillsFuture program graduates:

Over 26,000 Singaporeans and Permanent Residents participated in these programmes as of end-March 2022. Around 64% of those aged below 40 and 56% of those aged 40 and above found employment within six months of course completion. (Effectiveness of SkillsFuture Singapore Training Programmes, 2023)

Nevertheless, the SkillsFuture initiative is not without its' challenges. Some challenges mentioned in literature are as follows:

Challenges remain in encouraging more individuals in the workforce to ini­tiate their reskilling journey. Statistically, professionals, managers, executives, and technicians (PMETs) have the highest training participation rate (58.7%). Comparatively, clerical, sales and services workers, and production and related workers have lower training participation rates at 38.3% and 21.5% respectively (Ministry of Manpower, 2019). (Gog et al., 2024, p.523)

As per one article, additional program challenges are:

However, with an ambition to promote lifelong learning, multiple barriers may emerge that can stifle its progress and reach. Time constraints due to busy schedules, balancing work, family responsibilities, and other commitments leave one with limited time for formal education or training programmes. Financial limitations due to the high costs of education and training programmes, learning materials, and commuting may deter individuals with limited financial resources from pursuing further learning. The lack of awareness of the availability and benefits of lifelong learning and upskilling opportunities, the limited access to educational institutions, and the absence of flexible learning options can hinder adult learners from pursuing lifelong learning and upskilling. (Lim et al., 2024, p.4)

All in all, it is clear to me that, by introducing the SkillsFuture SG program website and portal into its' citizens media environment, the government of Singapore was able to positively contribute to the lives of its' citizens by informing workers of economic growth job opportunities, supporting adult learners in their career transitions, promoting the culture of lifelong learning and ensuring workers' career resilience, offering subsidized upskilling/reskilling courses for workers, and enabling a creation of an agile skills-based future-ready workforce.

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