The Standing Committee on Language Education & Research will allocate another $300 million from the Language Fund to increase the Professional Development Incentive Grant Scheme's coverage.

The additional allocation will allow the scheme to support at least 10,000 additional language teachers for their professional development, benefitting a total of 17,500.

The scheme, launched in 2004, aims to encourage more serving language teachers, particularly those who posses neither a degree nor any teacher training in the relevant language subject, to upgrade their professional qualifications.

Upon completion of an approved programme of study, each successful applicant will be reimbursed half of the tuition fee, up to a maximum of $30,000.

By August, the scheme had already received more than 5,200 applications, which marked a nearly 200% increase since last year, and the amount of grants sought had exceeded $156 million.