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29 Sep 2004
 
MOE GIVES MORE RESOURCES TO SUPPORT TEACHING

1.      Teachers are critical to everything we do in education.  To bring out the full potential in each child, we rely on teachers to motivate their students to strive beyond conventional thinking, and to develop qualities such as intellectual curiosity, daring initiative, and a willingness to experiment. 

2.      The Ministry of Education (MOE) will therefore provide more resources to schools over the next few years to better support our teachers, so that they have more time and space to reflect on their teaching, experiment with new pedagogies and upgrade themselves professionally.  This will in turn enable them to come up with new and innovative ways of teaching their students, so as to deepen understanding, spark interest and cultivate a passion for learning.

3.      The additional resources to be provided are:

         a. More teachers for primary schools, secondary schools and junior  colleges/centralised institute by 2010;

         b. Increased manpower grant to all schools;

         c. More teacher-counsellors and school counsellors for all schools;

         d. Dedicated staff trained in special education for some schools; and

         e. A pool of adjunct teachers to support schools when their teachers go for long-term training.

4.      The provision of more teachers for all schools by 2010 was announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the National Day Rally on 22 Aug 2004.  The deployment of additional resources were developed after extensive discussion with schools and collection of feedback through surveys and focus group discussions.  They were announced by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Minister for Education, at the MOE Work Plan Seminar 2004 on 29 Sep 2004.

PROVIDING MORE TEACHERS

5.      MOE will provide more teachers to primary schools, secondary schools and the JCs/CI over the next five years.  This will mean a net increase of 1000 primary school teachers, 1400 secondary school teachers and 550 JC/CI teachers[1].   By 2010, primary and secondary schools will have resources equivalent to 10 more teachers than would otherwise have been needed, and JCs/CI will have resources equivalent to 8 more teachers than would otherwise have been needed[2].

6.      Schools will have the flexibility to decide how to make best use of these teachers to meet the specific needs of their students.  The additional teachers will allow for benefits such as: 

a. Schools could experiment with new teaching approaches and smaller classes where necessary.  One example is parallel teaching where the class is split into two groups according to ability or understanding of a topic, and taught by two teachers.  This is especially useful in primary schools, where students’ abilities are mixed and wide-ranging.  Another method involves pulling out the very weak or very able pupils for certain subjects or periods, while grouping the class together for other periods.  A further method is team-teaching where two teachers support each other as a pair in the classroom.  Some schools which are currently using these methods have reported good results in students’ learning.          

b. Teachers would have more time to plan their lessons and adopt more innovative teaching practices.  Schools can also offload experienced teachers in some teaching duties to enable them to mentor and guide beginning teachers.

c. Schools could enhance character development.  The growing-up years in primary and secondary schools are the critical period when values are formed and character is shaped.  With more teachers, schools could better address the growing need to inculcate strong values in students, motivate them and develop robustness of character.

d. Primary schools could build niches of excellence.  This could be done by deploying new teachers with specialised skills to develop school-based niche programmes, or using these new teachers to offload existing teachers who may have specialised skills to run programmes.  The provision of specialised teachers or teaching resources would allow schools to develop special talents, and build on the flexibilities provided by partial single session for Primary 3-6 to strengthen their co-curricular and enrichment activities.

INCREASING MANPOWER GRANT

7.      MOE will also increase the manpower grant given to all schools to enable them to buy more support services to ease the workload of teachers.  Setting aside an additional total budget of $12m, we will increase the annual manpower grant per primary school by 78% and per secondary school/JC/CI by 27% from 2005.  Schools could use the additional funds to engage clerical support for data entry, bring in external providers to organise and manage school events, or provide logistics and manpower support for out-of-school activities.  Schools could also use the grant to enhance the educational experience of their students by employing experts in their respective field of excellence to conduct specialised training.

PROVIDING SPECIALIST SERVICES AND EXPERTISE

8.      MOE will appoint at least 1 school counsellor to every school by 2008 and train more teacher counsellors in schools, including at least 2 more teacher counsellors in each secondary school.  These measures will strengthen the current counselling support system[3]  by bringing additional expertise to the school level and help our teachers who may need to manage an increasing number of children with counselling needs. 

9.      To allow children with mild or moderate learning disabilities to benefit from a more inclusive education in mainstream schools, MOE will recruit and provide dedicated staff with training in special education to some mainstream schools designated to cater to students with dyslexia and autistic spectrum disorder[4].   These staff will support the teaching of students with special education needs, provide consultation to teachers and parents, and collaborate with relevant professionals in helping these students cope with mainstream education.  About 230 dedicated staff trained in special education would be recruited and deployed to schools over the next 5 years.

DEVELOPING OUR TEACHERS

10.     A new adjunct teachers programme will be implemented with effect from October 2004 to attract former trained teachers to rejoin the teaching profession.  This will also provide an avenue for MOE to retain the expertise and institutional knowledge of these teachers, who would be able to serve in the education service under more flexible terms, while assuring schools of their services for a defined period of time.  This will facilitate the process for teachers to pursue professional development opportunities, as the adjunct teachers can support schools when their teachers go for long-term training.

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[1] This is compared to the current size of the teaching force.  On average, there will be a net increase of 5-6 teachers per primary school, 9-10 teachers per secondary school and 30 teachers per JC/CI.