In a recent article appearing in TODAY, it was highlighted that there was a sharp rise in the fees for short corporate courses. This has been going on for several years, with more and more courses coming into the market - all of different quality, duration and rising fees.

At Impress Training, we have recognised this trend and took the stand that high-quality, affordable fees was the way to go to service the broader section Asia - an it has been working! Many SME’s have reported back to us that fees were getting too high and in some cases, the quality of training had fallen with substanded notes, too many game-playing and not enough imparting of actual skills.

In all our courses, we develop specific Learner workbooks (not just powerpoint hand-out’s) that provide for in-class exercises and information in addition to extra material to take away and consume in their own time. Training materials and delivery are all determined to be at a high level and ultimately pragmatic. There’s no point deleivering skills that nobody can use. 

‘A Case for More, for less”

Shorter courses, yet fees have gone up by 14 per cent on average at NUS Extension

DERRICK A PAULO : Today: Monday 16^th July 2007

LIFE-LONG learning may be a national priority now, but as some students have found out, that is not enough to shield them from the double whammy of fee increases and the Goods and Services Tax hike. Two days before the higher 7-per-cent GST kicked in on July 1, prospective students of the continuing education arm of the National University of Singapore (NUS) received news that fees for many courses had gone up — by an average 14 per cent. In comparison, the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM), the other big providers of lifelong learning courses, have not increased course fees for their continuing education and professional development courses this year.

One caller to the MediaCorp Hotline at 6822 2268 described the fee increase as “profiteering”. A student told TODAY he found it unfair how the fee for NUS Extension’s parttime basic Mandarin course, for example, is now $650, which is $20 more, when the course duration had been shortened to 40 hours from the original 48.

According to NUS Extension, its fee increases were to offset the “significant increase” in operating and rental costs, although it did not elaborate on how much these have increased. NUS Extension is located at the Park Mall building, a commercial facility on Penang Road. NTU and SIM, in contrast, conduct continuing education classes on their main or satellite campuses.

NUS Extension’s latest fee hike is double the average increase some courses saw in January, the last time it had adjusted its fees — also to offset an increase in operating costs, said its spokesman.

The fee adjustments for its lifelong learning courses, which may last a day or several weeks, are in contrast to the situation for undergraduate studies. NUS, like NTU and the Singapore Management University, announced in January that they would not raise tuition fees this year in view of the upcoming 2-percentage-point increase in GST. In general, undergraduate fee increases are also capped at 10 per cent a year.

Courses at NUS Extension, though, are self-funding and “do not attract any subvention”, said its spokesman. “Upward and downward adjustment of course fees are done to ensure that each individual course is self-sustaining,” he said, and pointed out that the fees this year for some courses had been reduced. For some students, the issue is that the fee adjustments cut too close to the increase in GST. NUS Extension had sent out its 18,000 catalogues in late June, leaving prospective students only a couple of days to avoid paying the higher GST rate.

“There was no warning,” said one student who is taking an applied psychology course. NUS Extension said the adjustments were aligned with the publication of its course catalogue, which is circulated at the beginning of January and July each year. The Centre for Continuing Education at NTU also reviews fees on a half-yearly basis. NUS Extension’s current students, however, were informed about the fee adjustments a few weeks earlier and could enjoy the earlier rates if they enrolled and paid for the courses by June 30.

Still, there were complaints about the introduction of non-refundable registration fees of $50 for courses which cost below $700, and $120 for those above $700. According to NUS Extension, it had reviewed operating procedures and “realised there had been past instances where students had signed up for courses without paying a registration fee and had then dropped out or failed to show up for classes”.

“This had resulted in NUS Extension bearing the expenses required to engage the external trainers, as well as other administrative and logistics charges required to conduct the courses,” said the spokesman. The registration fee is in addition to the latest fee increases. Not all students were deterred by the higher prices, though. “Compared to other places, it may be more expensive, but I’m getting positive feedback from colleagues. The most important thing is the learning result,” said Mr Denny Hendoko, 24, who registered last week for a Mandarin class. More than 530 students have registered for courses commencing this month, not including classes which will start later.

This article first appeared in Personnel Today magazine 

A dark shadow of deep-seated cultural prejudice threatens to limit the competitiveness of UK organisations [as well as in Asia ]. This prejudice takes the form of a profound bias in management and executive circles, and boardrooms, favouring so-called ‘hard’ skills and knowledge, such as finance, technology, and legal, against the allegedly ’soft’ skills, which include the ability to manage working relationships. This bias is reflected in the focus on hard metrics, with much less focus on the means of achieving the hard figures through people.

Ironically, for many managers, the soft skills are the hard skills. Ask anyone who has had to manage change, deal with organisational politics, or build a disparate group of people into an effective team.

Soft skills are essentially the skills of relationship management and creativity, underpinned by emotional intelligence. These include the ability to empathise with others, manage conflict, cope with ambiguity and paradox, and navigate a route through complex interpersonal and strategic scenarios. So why is it that the very terms ’soft’ and ‘hard’ imply the very opposite? And why is it that UK managers are traditionally sceptical about the importance of soft skills and, by their attitudes, discount them?

Part of the answer lies in business school education. Generations of business people have been educated to believe that effective management and leadership principally require ‘hard’ strategic and analytical skills, a clear understanding of the dynamics of business and the ability to make effective decisions.

 Managers have been trained to look for evidence and data as the basis for decision-making. Business cultures have conventionally relegated emotions and social values to the sidelines. As a result, we have generations of managers who find that they lack the skills to help them deal with issues relating to the motivation, management and development of human beings. Managers can be forgiven for putting people-related issues and decisions into the ‘too difficult’ box.

Without the ability to communicate and engage effectively with staff, managers are unlikely to be able to implement tomorrow’s strategic plan. Without self-awareness, flexibility and resilience, managers are likely to keep doing what they always did, long after the need for a different approach arises.

 HR should be in a strong position to build the business case. As designers of succession planning processes, HR can ensure that tomorrow’s leaders are developed into great organisational as well as business leaders. HR professionals are in a good position to coach leaders at all levels and design development and reward processes that nurture the skills that make organisations tick effectively. As change agents, HR professionals are more aware than most of the cost of poorly managed change processes in terms of employee motivation. If we add up the consequences of the lack of soft skills evident in terms of high staff turnover, the cost of new recruits, creative opportunities lost or not capitalised on, and the inability of top management to make decisions, the business case for addressing the soft skills deficit becomes obvious.

All too often the phrases such as “I don’t need PowerPoint”, “I don’t have time to do fancy graphics” or “I have never needed it before” ring very often from those who have been teaching or training for some years. But just like the industry, market forces and consumer tastes have changed and the same old product (trainer/ teacher) is beginning to fail in delivering an interesting product. Without injecting new features/ benefits into the product, the consumer (student/client) will wonder off to someone who can provide the product that suits their needs. Without a doubt the trainer/ teacher and their ability to articulate the knowledge, personally connect and remain genuine in their passion for the craft will always be a foundation for a great trainer/ teacher.

And not withstanding to the contrary, the world we lived in has changed, students, clients have become multi-tasking, multi-media savvy and their stimulus for learning has changed and those that can generate information in a variety of formats will surely win the game of engagement. PowerPoint has become a default tool for presenting information; however, needless to say it is a tool that not everyone uses very well. Just like a hammer and chisel, everyone can bang bits of rock, but not everyone can sculpt without learning to use the tools beyond their functionality.

In essence, (presentations skills and teaching delivery aside), there remain 3 critical areas to ensuring the PowerPoint and/or Media you provide will take you (the product) to another level:

q       Design Skills

q       Visual Thinking

q       Content Management

In Singapore , the government has already laid the foundations with initiatives such as iN2015, Future Classrooms and other e & m-learning developments.

Are you part of this sector who feels they need to upgrade their ability in providing a richer variety of media in this sector?

Terri Sjodins ‘New Sales Speak: 9 Biggest Sales Presentation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them’ provides both good presentation advice, but also good Sales advice, especially in the areas where sales most likely fail – i.e. the close. If you get a chance, I suggest you read this book as it reverse engineers what is bad about presentations (especially sales presentations) from an audience perspective, something which I have been doing in my own presentation training. This way, you can nail home very quickly what everyone hates to see from the start – and avoid it. It has useful strategies on How to close Sale presentations (call to action), Being Boring, Body Language and much more.

One good example that incorporated into a lot of presentations is the concept of the ‘Harm’ scenario. A techniques being used in advertising now for many years.She gave several good examples in her book such as the about Mouth Wash. In the 1980’s, mouth wash was advertised based on its FAB (features, advantages and benefits), the message being that with a great smelling breath someone will likely kiss you. Jump forward to the year 2000’s and now advertisers are using HARM to sell their products. Now, if you don’t use mouth wash you’ll be at risk of bad breath, gum problems, and worst of all – never be kissed. They managed to turn the product into a ‘must have’ rather than a ‘good to have’.

Try to think about some of the other products out there being advertised using the HARM factor now? You’ll be surprised just how many there are. Do you work for a company that sells based on this scenario – if not, would it work?