The original goal of Skills Future Credit scheme aims to encourage individual ownership of skills development and lifelong learning. All Singaporeans aged 25 and above will receive S$500 credit each. Little did the government realize that some operators turned this life long learning scheme into the financing of "buffet lunch treats" for senior citizens.
It is troubling to see that there seems to be an emerging trend of unscrupulous training centers targeting senior citizens to suck out the Skills Future Credit of S$500 granted. The modus operandi is to offer free hotel buffet lunch. The emphasis by the training centers and their sales team is not on how useful their courses are but instead, "free hotel buffet lunch" is being marketed aggressively to senior citizens. Senior citizens are encouraged to bring along their friends and refer them to the training centers.
My mum was approached by one of the sales personnel of a local training center to go for one of their courses. The salesman marketed the course as a free buffet session at a local hotel. The saleman even ask for the Singpass PIN number of my Mum to help her log into the Skills Future Credit portal to file for the training claim as she does not know how to use the computer. While I am impressed by the entrepreneurship displayed by such training centers, I think that this is unethical and as the Malaysian PM Mahathir likes to say: "This is morally wrong".
Can you name the training provider? Thank you.
ReplyDeleteCan let us know which training provider/s so our parents won’t fall for this as well?
ReplyDeleteHi Jenny, the training centres are providing legitimate courses and do qualify for SFC. Senior Citizens who signed up does benefit from the course albeit some of them are more interested in the buffets provided...haha. So technically speaking, it's a "win win" for all....just that I think the marketing by dangling the buffet lunches as a centre piece is not in line with the essence of the SFC....which is to encourage lifelong learning and not about providing "free buffet lunches".
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