SINGAPORE — He had wanted to pursue an engineering degree, but an unexpected turn as an adviser on matters of the heart during his National Service days led Mr Jai Prakash down the path of social work.

“During my final year in army, a lot of my friends broke up. So, we got together and talked about it. A lot of them said they felt good talking to me, and that got me thinking, ‘Maybe I should do psychology’,” said the 37-year-old general manager of Kreta Ayer and Bukit Merah Social Service Office (SSO).

Psychology came hand-in-hand with social work, he was told, and so, Mr Prakash ended up reading both at the National University of Singapore.

More than a decade on, Mr Jai is still very much involved in social work and last year, he was nominated by the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) to take part in the Public Service Leadership Programme (PSLP).

The PSLP is designed to develop officers for key positions in five sectors — economy building, infrastructure and environment, security, social, and central administration. Under the programme, officers are groomed to become specialist leaders with an in-depth knowledge of their fields.

At the inaugural Public Service Leadership Dinner yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean described the challenges that officers face as “increasingly complex and diverse”. He said finding solutions to these requires cross-boundary thinking, coupled with deeper specialisation.

“Many issues are inter-connected ... Public officers not only have to take care of one particular concern, but also consider how to manage the inter-linkages with other related issues,” said Mr Teo, who is also Home Affairs Minister.

Since the PSLP’s launch in April last year, 601 officers have come on board the programme, with 172 officers participating this year.

Over the past year, the Public Service Division has been rolling out sector-specific milestone training programmes, said head of Civil Service Peter Ong yesterday. For example, the security sector recently concluded a two-week National Security Milestone Programme, where senior leaders and security experts shared their knowledge with younger officers.

For Mr Jai, who attended a four-week management development course in January this year, the PSLP has also opened the door for collaboration with various agencies. Recounting his experience as an SSO manager, he said: “Bukit Merah SSO is right smack in the rental community, and when we first opened in December, we had pests — rats, bedbugs, cockroaches.

Mr Jai, who had been involved in disability and rehabilitation services work, and strategic planning and development work at both the MSF and the then-Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, said: “We wanted to see if we could work on something more systemic, so I emailed my course-mates from various agencies and they linked me up with the right people. Within a week of sending out that email, we got something going.”

Another PSLP participant, National Parks Board Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Er, said younger officers will find the programme’s mentoring component highly useful — having himself benefited from the guidance of a mentor after joining NParks back in 1997.

“For a young person coming back from university, being taught on the ground why certain things were done was in itself a lesson — things like, if you want to plant a small tree, the planting depth is one metre,” said Mr Er, who was the Gardens by the Bay Chief Operating Officer before returning to head NParks in February this year.

“These are things that you don’t get from textbooks or learn in university. It is knowledge that has been adapted to fit the context of what we are — urban. That was the kind of guidance we got,” he added.