Training Grant Incentives in singapore

Training Grant Incentives in Singapore

It is challenging to make your place in this fast-paced world. A lot of people struggle with finding a stable job with a market competitive income. Therefore, it is a good idea to upgrade your skills to explore better employment opportunities. Working-class people, however, do not have the resources to invest in training and programs. The government of Singapore helps its citizens with this need by offering them training grant incentives to grow their careers.

There are different kinds of training grant incentives available for individuals and for employers who are interested to enroll their employees in training programs. Each of the grant schemes has different requirements, eligibility criteria, and courses. If you are looking for training grant incentives in Singapore, then this article will be a guide for you.

Employer-sponsored training

There is a culture of employee education in Singaporean companies, wherein the employers have an obligation to provide training to their employees and bear the cost. Employer-sponsored training is a good concept that moves the burden of education expenses from the individual to the company. It is a fair practice because the employee’s improved skills will help the company in the long run and it will make it easier for individuals to apply for these programs.

The Skills Development Fund (SDF) is an initiative to encourage corporations to send their workers to training by providing accessible grant schemes for various programs. The SDF is a part of the SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) Agency. Another program of SSG is the Enhanced Training Support for small and medium level companies. Unlike large corporations, small and mid-level enterprises are reluctant to invest in employees’ skill growth. Therefore, SSG has introduced the program to provide extra support as discount fee subsidies. The funds ease the situation of companies with low budgets for employee education.

Eligibility

Some certain requirements and criteria need to be met before applying for a fund. For the SDF support grant, the enterprise should be registered in Singapore. The enterprise should also be contributing Skills Development Levy and CPF to be approved for funding. The candidates should be working in their respective companies for a considerable period and they should be either permanent residents or citizens of Singapore. Unfortunately, the subsidy program is not available for foreign employees who are in the country on work or visit visas.

The SDF subsidy will only be approved for individuals who have attended more than 75% of their classes (of the courses they are enrolled in) and have appeared for all their assessments. The SDF scheme is not yet available for trainees working independently. A trainee should get their company to sponsor them. However, there is an option for candidates applying on their own, who can opt for the SkillsFuture Credits incentive. They should be a citizen or permanent resident and have to be older than 25 to be eligible.

Only small and medium-level companies who are incorporated in Singapore can apply for the Enhanced Training Support incentive. It is a requirement that over 30% of shareholders of the company should be either local Singapore citizens or permanent residents. To be eligible for the grant, the organization investigates if it is a small or medium scale company. For a company to qualify as small or medium scale, it should have no more than 200 employees and yearly revenue of less than $100 million. As for the candidates, they should not be full-time national service people and should be permanent residents or citizens of Singapore. They should also have their employers on board to pay the remaining course fee.

Courses available in SDF (among others)

  • MS Office Basic
  • MS Excel 2019
  • MS Excel 2016
  • Autocad 2D
  • Autocad 3D
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Interior Designing (3ds Max & V-Ray)
  • Web Designing Full Course
  • C Programming Basic
  • C++ Programming Full Course
  • Java Programming Full Course
  • C#.Net Programming Basic
  • C#.Net Programming Full Course
  • Net Programming Full Course

Grant value

Small and medium business employees get over 90% of their course expenses waived off by the SSG under the SkillsFuture program. The amount of the grant varies from candidate to candidate. The details of the employee will be considered at application and their salary, experience, age, and qualification will be considered, as well as the status of the applicant company. Therefore, the grant value is sometimes higher for some candidates according to their details, and lower for some.

The concept of net fee payment type is when a corporate company pays total course fee payment minus the funding received from SSG. After they get the grant funding approved, they proceed with the process. The application of the training grant is filled by the company employer that provides all necessary information of course requirements and nature of the job. It is then sent to SSG for clearance. It is the responsibility of the training program organization to forward the application of the participants after the completion of their course. SSG will then release the funding to the training organization and the Absentee Payroll amount might be given to the company in some cases.

How to apply

Applying for funding programs is not a complex process. Since the grants are by government organizations, they have made it accessible for every person to fill them with ease without having to go through a lengthy procedure. There is mostly all the necessary information available on the official websites of the grant programs, including registration forms and required documents. For SDF funding, the company’s HR (or management, operations, finance) officer will have to log in with their credentials. They will have to link their profile with the SkillsConnect server and sign up. There will be an available list of options for them to perform.

Most developed countries want their citizens to start businesses and focus on expanding horizons and implementing new and creative ideas. The government grants are not just beneficial for the companies’ profits and their employees’ careers but help improve the economy of Singapore, which has increased its ranking in the past few years.

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