Tan See Leng said that before and perhaps in order to survive, we ought to be more like foreigners. Come October 2025, Singapore will be offering up to 800 new structured traineeships for fresh graduates through two new programmes known as the GRaduate Industry Traineeships (GRIT) and GRIT@Gov.
GRIT and GRIT@Gov will offer graduates from universities, polytechnics, the Institute of Technical Educations (ITE), and other educational institutions like private universities and overseas institutions paid traineeships to gain industry-relevant skills and ease their transition into full-time jobs.
Dr Tan explained: “We have designed GRIT to help our fresh graduates gain industry experience and practical skills via traineeship which can then help them explore various career options while strengthening [their] employability for future jobs.”
Huh? Yao mo gao chor ah? I remember every single one of us who graduated from NUS in 1989 managed to get a full-time job without any “transitioning”. And you would think that with such high standards in the field of education, billions spent on tuition and world-beating PISA scores, our graduates today have to be far more knowledgeable and employable than we were back then. Why is there this “transitioning” process now? Why do they still need GRIT traineeships?
A general degree holder may not have all the skills to begin a career in banking, but these are fast and intelligent learners. I know Arts and Computing graduates who went on to become bankers without through any “transitioning” process. Yes, they started off in full-time jobs and gained experience on the job. What about our polytechnic and ITE graduates? Aren’t they specifically trained for the job market? Why is a “transitioning” process necessary? Why are the things in the transitioning program not taught when they were in school? Why can’t they learn on the job?
Dr Tan See Leng mentioned that the GRIT program will have traineeship positions in data science, strategy and planning, business analytics, digital marketing and engineering-related roles. Aren’t many of our graduates already trained in these areas? OK, I won’t keep you waiting. The answer may lie in the next piece of information.
The traineeships will span across various sectors and industries and will last between three to six months. Depending on the scope of each traineeship, trainees can expect a monthly allowance between $1,800 to $2,400. The Government will fund 70 per cent of the allowance, with the host company bearing the remaining 30 per cent.
So for fresh graduates who can’t find a job, they can now join a “traineeship” with a companies that would not be able to employ them without government funding. It’s an option open to graduates who can’t find jobs. They could either sit at home and play video games all day, or they could be cheaper, better, faster like their foreign counterparts. An “allowance” of $1800 to $2400 is not an unemployment benefit. You need to work for it. Joo Chiat independent candidate Jeremy Tan used to call his opponent out for part-time job, full-time pay. Now, our fresh graduates may be getting full-time jobs with part-time pay.
Finally, our local salary scale is “catching up” with that of our foreign counterparts who are scrimping and struggling to service the mortgage for their bungalows ack home. And to show how much we love our foreign counterparts, a video of an LTA engineer berating a foreign worker for some safety lapse went viral. The virtue signallers were out in full force, vilifying the engineer and goading others to “make him famous”. Some even called for the sacking of the engineer. Fortunately, the engineer only got some “counselling” and made amends by apologising to the worker he berated.
I wonder how many of these folks wouldn’t scold a subordinate for safety lapses. If they want to be fair, they should also complain about how recruits are being shouted at during BMT. Should all the sergeants be trained to say: “Boy ah, don’t anyhow point your rifle ler.”
