WDA to set aside $2.7m to raise professionalism of security industry

The Workforce Development Agency, or WDA, will set aside $2.7 million to help raise the professionalism of the security industry. 

Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Home Affairs, Masagos Zulkifli, announced this at the opening of the two-day Security Industry Conference this morning.

He said the money will be used to train 2,500 security professionals and equip them with specialised skills to help raise productivity and efficiency. 

Mr Masagos also announced two new initiatives to raise the professionalism of security personnel. 

Security officers who perform specialised screenings at high-security places like airports will have to take two new mandatory security modules under the Workforce Skills Qualifications framework. 

These will equip them with the skills to perform better in tasks such as detecting dangerous weapons. 

Mr Christopher Koh, who's a deputy director of WDA, hopes they'll help to help the industry attract and retain talent. 

"The 2.7 million that has been allocated is actually additional training funds for both existing and new security officers to enrol in some of the WDA programmes. So in particular, they can enrol in the security screening for X-ray machines, and to perform security screening on bags and persons. This will then value-add on the workers, and ensure that the security officers can be cross-deployed."