Welfare recipients skip skills training en masse
Apisak ties payments to course attendance
Nearly half of the government’s welfare and subsidy scheme recipients who voluntarily signed up to participate in skills training programmes in return for a higher living allowance failed to do the training courses.
Almost 3 million or 44% of the 6.4 million welfare smart-card holders who registered for the training courses refused to join the programme, said Finance Minister Apisak Tantivorawong.
The government cannot force them to participate in the courses and is trying to convince them of the benefits, he said.
The second phase of the government’s welfare and subsidy scheme is aimed at addressing the root causes of poverty, requiring recipients to sign up for skills training programmes last month to obtain an additional living allowance of 100-200 baht a month to buy goods at Thong Fah Pracha Rat shops, on top of the 200-300 given under the first phase.
Apart from training, the second phase was designed to allow low-income earners better access to financial resources covering basic needs, including homes, land for generating income and savings for retirement.
Last August the cabinet approved the first phase of the aid package, worth 41.9 billion baht, for 11.7 million low-income earners — 5.3 million of whom have income below the poverty line.
Half of the scheme’s 5.3 million recipients whose income is below the poverty line, set at 30,000 baht a year, signed up for the training courses. The Labour Ministry recently said there are 100,000 jobs in the domestic market and another 7,000 abroad available to training programme participants.
The Government Savings Bank and the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives will provide loans to 2.1 million participants. The government has allocated 35.7 billion baht to fund the second phase, expected to help 1 million recipients cross the poverty line this year.
Mr Apisak said that additional living allowance for those registering to take the training programmes but then failing to do so would be cut off.
He said he has repeatedly told state officials the training must help those in need escape poverty, unlike in the past when people who enrolled in such courses were not able to put anything they learned into practice.