The Board plays a significant role in steering the direction of The Logistics Academy in fulfilling its vision and mission. Ensuring the financial viability of the Academy, the Board review its policies, rules and regulations regularly. The Board conducted two meetings on 04 June and 17 November 2020.

 

During the unprecedented pandemic year, the Board had a busy year making critical decisions on the conduct of the training courses in tandem with the guidelines provided by the Singapore SkillsFuture (SSG) to prevent the spread of the COVID-19.

 

In end March 2020, in view of the tighter measures on safe distancing, the Board approved the suggestion made by the TLA training team to move from physical classroom to synchronous e-learning for modules starting in April 2020. This would address the concerns from lecturers and participants as well as safe-guard training team who would be rostered to do temperature checks / travel declaration. The move would help to fight against the spread of COVID-19 by minimizing travel and contacts.

 

Further to the Multi-Ministry Taskforce’s announcement of a circuit breaker on 07 April 2020 to pre-empt the trend of increasing local transmission of COVID-19, all Private Education Institutions (PEIs) had to move to home-based learning or suspend classes otherwise. All staff of PEIs, including TLA had to work from home (WFH).

 

SSG provided guidelines for conduct of synchronous e-learning and the requirements for the online platform to be adopted. On 17 April 2020, the Board approved the adoption of Zoom Education as the online platform and worked towards resumption of synchronous e-learning on 27 April 2020. The TLA training team conducted intensive training with lecturers on one-to-one basis to ensure that they are familiar and well equipped on the Zoom platform to conduct synchronous e-learning effectively, tapping on break-out rooms for group discussion as well as polling for quizzes. Many dry runs too were organised to ensure that they were all ready to conduct synchronous e-learning.

 

On 18 June 2020, SSG provided updates on the arrangements for Continuing Education and Training (CET) activities, following the Multi-Ministry Taskforce’s announcement on the transition into Phase 2 of post-Circuit Breaker from 19 June 2020 where in-person training would be permitted for all CET activities. Notwithstanding this, online learning should remain the default delivery mode for all CET activities wherever feasible.

 

The BOD decided on 19 June 2020 that the Diploma programmes would continue with synchronous e-learning based on the following reasons:

 

• To minimise the disruption of the ongoing classes, as well as safe-guarding everyone including lecturers, training team and participants well-being by minimizing travelling.

• With the limited manpower, TLA was faced with resource constrains to comply with temperature screening and SafeEntry record keeping measures in the evening.

 

The Board decided that the Continuous Learning Programmes would resume day physical classroom training based on the following reasons:

 

• Synchronous e-learning was explored during the Circuit Breaker period. However, there were mixed responses from the lecturers and human resource personnel and staff. Face-to-face training was preferred for effective learning and interactions.

• In line with MOM’s guidelines on the safe management measures at workplaces, TLA allocated resources to comply with the safe measures such as to declare the manpower details on the GoBusiness website, conduct temperature screening, record entry of all participants via SafeEntry and ensure safe distancing measures.

 

Besides ensuring the compliance of the SSG guidelines on response to COVID-19, the Board recommended to the TLA Training Advisory Council (TAC) to review the relevancy of the existing courses and to identify the training gaps on logistics that TLA could fill. The review would be done with reference to the SSG Skills Framework 16 Critical Core Skills and the 13 logistics I4.0 technologies prevalent in Singapore. More focus would be placed on programmes geared towards digital supply chain in tandem with the industry development on digitalisation, with a view to prepare the workforce for industry transformation.

 

SLA Council approved the recommendation made by the Board in November 2020 to expand its Board with 2 more members. Mr Dave Ng – SLA Chairman and Mr Max Ee – Deputy Chairman of SLA Human Capital Development Committee were appointed as Board Members with effect from 21 December 2020 to beef up the area of expertise.