Fact Sheet: CSNS Recommendation: NS Skills Accreditation

Background

National Service (NS) is to meet the critical need of national security and defence. National servicemen are trained by the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) with skills that directly contribute to protecting Singapore. Some of these skills that a national serviceman acquires in NS are also useful in his civilian life and the SAF is looking into how they can be recognised by their prospective employers for the competencies and vocational skills they acquire in NS.

Over the next year, the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) and the SAF will collaborate with the Workforce Development Agency (WDA) to accredit soldiering competencies to reflect the leadership, technical and specialist skills acquired during NS. WDA will match relevant military skills acquired during NS to the respective industrial domains under the Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ) framework.

This initiative is one of the 30 recommendations made by the Committee to Strengthen National Service (CSNS). It will allow employers to better understand and recognise the skills learnt during full-time NS, as well as help full-time national servicemen better transit into the workforce in industries where there is matching of relevant skills.

Implementation

The accreditation process for each military course will take approximately six months, across three phases. Phase 1 involves the mapping of training syllabus, where the content of our military training will be matched to relevant domains within industries. Phase 2 involves accrediting the training institute where the training/teaching pedagogy and the proficiency of the trainers will be benchmarked to WDA's requirements. Phase 3 involves auditing the training delivery, where the conduct of training will be validated for consistency.

MINDEF and the SAF are working with WDA to finalise the implementation in the next year. More details will be released when available.

More Resources

• Minister for Defence's SAF Day Media Interview 2015