With skills upgrading a means for workers to improve their livelihoods and enhance their career development, NTUC has been supporting the training needs of members with the Union Training Assistance Programme (UTAP).
In a nutshell, UTAP is a personal skills upgrading account that lets members enjoy 50 per cent, or up to $250 in funding per calendar year to help defray their course fees. There is a list of UTAP-approved courses from partners such as NTUC LearningHub that members can choose from on http://skillsupgrade.ntuc.org.sg. Claims can be made from UTAP within 6 months from the end of the course.
UTAP’s Origins
First established in May 1998 by NTUC and its affiliated unions, UTAP was previously known as the NTUC Education and Training Fund (NETF). Through NTUC’s extensive network, various donation drives, such as a mass walkathon and private donations, more than $15 million dollars was raised to kick-start the initiative. In support of the programme, the Government then agreed to match $3 for every $1 raised by NTUC, which brought the total amount of money raised for the fund to $60 million. To date, more than $20.4 million in training subsidies had been disbursed since 1998, when the NETF started. In 2014 alone, approximately $1.75 million had been disbursed for 21, 581 training placements.
In 2010 that the fund was renamed as UTAP and administered by e2i. Over the last 17 years, the premise for the fund has not changed and it remains a means to empower workers to take up training on their own.
To find out more about UTAP approved courses of make a claim through UTAP, visit http://skillsupgrade.ntuc.org.sg/.
