Civil servants must take charge of own learning and growth: Chan Chun Sing
Education Minister Chan Chun Sing said adopting lifelong learning is essential for public officers and the service as a whole. PHOTO: BT
Ng Wei Kai
PUBLISHED
8 JUL 2022, 11:21 PM SGT
SINGAPORE - Since last year, civil servant Samuel Tan has been embedded with e-commerce company Shopee, where his work is to understand business models in various markets, identify opportunities and develop solutions to capture them.
Mr Tan, who has been a civil servant for 16 years, took up the post to help him gain a deeper understanding of technology, which will serve him well on his return to the public service later this year.
Mr Tan, 41, said: "I saw it as a natural progression from my work in the Infocomm and Media Development Authority (IMDA) that would enable me to pick up new skill sets and gain new insights related to the technology sector."
Minister-in-charge of the public service Chan Chun Sing said on Friday (July 8) that other public servants should take the chance to get exposure like Mr Tan, and take charge of their own growth and development.
Speaking at the One Public Service Observance Ceremony, which is part of the annual Public Service Week, Mr Chan, who is also Education Minister, said: "With the new skills, insights, and network that Samuel picked up at Shopee, he is much better equipped to drive digitalisation and tech talent development for the nation back at IMDA."
Adopting lifelong learning is essential for both individual public officers and the service as a whole to stay relevant so that it is ready to take on the complex challenges of the future, said Mr Chan.
He added that starting from this year, each public officer can also use up to 40 hours a year to pursue developmental opportunities with private, social, and non-profit organisations.
Public Service Week has been held since 2008 to celebrate and recognise the work of government officers.
Friday's event at the HDB Auditorium in Toa Payoh was attended virtually and in-person by about 15,000 public servants from across the Government.
Mr Chan said Singapore's public service must also be agile and collaborative if it is to steer Singapore successfully through the coming period of global political and economic instability and change.
How nimble it is will determine if Singapore can seize opportunities within the challenges, and secure its future, he said.
Citing how the public service was swift to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic and how it is now cross-training its officers in front-line services, he said: "We were able to do these (measures against Covid-19) in an agile and coordinated manner because of our early steps to form cross-functional teams like the multi-ministry task force on the virus and the Homefront Crisis Executive Group.
"Working together gave agencies a deep understanding of the challenges that we were all facing together. It gave us a deep sense of trust in one another. This is the 'secret sauce' that allows us to be agile."
The service must also cultivate a culture of collaboration, said Mr Chan, adding that no single agency has a monopoly of knowledge or skills.
In tackling climate change, for instance, various agencies are working with businesses, households and individuals to bring Singapore's carbon emissions to net zero by the middle of this century.
Besides collaboration at agency level, all officers are encouraged to work with one another, said Mr Chan.
He said: "The next lap of our nation building will not just be about how well we do as a public service.
"It will also be about how well we bring the rest of the country along with us, where everyone feels a sense of commitment in this journey ahead. It is not just about delivering for our people. It is about delivering with our people."
