Effective CET Provisions: Perspectives from Graduates and Employers

Considering national imperatives associated with maintaining the skills currency and adaptability of workforces, there is a need to broaden the scalability, reach, levels of engagement in and quality of continuing education and training (CET) provisions. This includes encouraging participation and informing working-age adults about it and ensuring their attendance and engagement in CET. Understanding what constitutes effective CET provisions is, thus, paramount in achieving these objectives. The perspectives of the adults who participate in CET and employers who support them is particularly salient as, unlike for younger people, participation and engagement in CET is largely the discretion of these adults (i.e., voluntary and not compulsory). The ability of CET provisions to support the achievement of the kinds of goals associated with these adults’ employability are key national concerns, which includes engaging them in programs that they find worthwhile and meet their personal objectives. Hence, identifying and evaluating what constitutes effective CET through gathering data from recent CET graduates offers the bases for informing how best these provisions should be designed, enacted, and evaluated, including what constitutes effective CET teaching. Also, employers are perhaps more likely to sponsor employees’ training when they believe that such investments will lead to short or long-term benefits for their enterprises. So, they are key stakeholders in deliberations about policies and practices associated with CET of the workforces. Consequently, understanding their needs and expectations may help inform about their expectations and preferences for CET programs and assist educational institutions to meet their needs as potential sponsors of such education provisions that may also benefit the society and economy. Drawing on an investigation of CET provisions in Singapore, this chapter seeks to illuminate and appraise what constitutes qualities of effective CET provisions in relation to addressing issues of relevance, accessibility, and quality of engagement with educational experiences by these stakeholders. It does this through analyses of detailed, face-to-face, and comprehensive interviews conducted with 180 CET graduates and 40 employers as informed interlocutors. The findings provide bases for understanding what constitutes effective provisions of CET in this national case study and this can inform the design, enactment, and evaluation of effective CET programs.