Press Releases
Developing a New Generation School Team
Building a strong school team is critical to delivering quality education to every child. The Ministry of Education will consider recruiting only graduates as new teachers by 2015 and introduce programmes to enhance the professional development of the existing teaching force. MOE will also grow the pool of allied educators in schools to provide teachers with greater support in enhancing holistic learning. A new career scheme will also be introduced for the allied educators to recognise their contributions and improve their career progression. Dr Ng Eng Hen, Minister for Education and 2nd Minister for Defence, announced these at the MOE Work Plan Seminar 2008 on 25 Sep 2008.
Raising the Minimum Qualifications for New Teachers
High quality teaching requires good mastery of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. Past experience has shown that the growing number of graduates in primary schools have helped to raise standards. As part of its review, the Primary Education Review and Implementation (PERI) Committee, chaired by Ms Grace Fu, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of National Development and Ministry of Education, will explore requiring all new teachers to have degrees as minimum qualifications. This will include recruiting good A-level and diploma-level holders who qualify for the National Institute of Education’s Bachelor of Arts/ Bachelor of Science in Education programmes.
Currently, MOE recruits teachers from the top 30% of each cohort. Over the last few years, the percentage of graduates1” among newly recruited teachers has averaged at 69% for primary schools and 92% for secondary schools. At the same time, an increasing number of non-graduate teachers have also obtained their undergraduate degrees in-service - from 256 in 2004 to 364 in 2008. At present, 55% of our primary school teachers and 91% of our secondary school teachers are graduates.
As more of our diploma graduates obtain degrees and we expand our university cohort participation rate to 30% in 2015, it is timely to move towards recruiting as teachers only those with a degree or who qualify for an undergraduate programme.
The rigour of our teacher selection process has to be maintained. Besides academic credentials, we will continue to look at a candidate’s aptitude for teaching and whether he has a heart for nurturing young people. The content knowledge and learning skills acquired through the additional years of university study is always an asset.
High-performing education systems around the world have teachers with high qualifications. For example, countries like Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States of America require their teachers to be graduates while all teachers in Finland are required to possess a Master’s degree. Hong Kong has also been moving towards an all-graduate teaching force.
The PERI Committee will also look into providing more opportunities for in-service non-graduate teachers to upgrade their qualifications. Present in our system today are many excellent teachers who are diploma holders. They remain valued members of the school team and there will be no change to the schemes they are on or their route of advancements. In areas such as the languages and other specialised areas, there will also still be room to employ diploma holders with specialised skills.
Professional Development and Growth
The teaching profession must be a learning profession, where its members continuously learn and grow. The GROW 2.0 package underscores MOE’s commitment to develop teachers and school leaders. Various schemes such as the Professional Development Leave (PDL) and Professional Development Packages have helped teachers add value to their teaching. As at Aug 2008, 448 teachers had applied for PDL to upgrade themselves, a two-fold increase from 214 in 2007. Teachers are also participating in Professional Learning Circles in schools to enhance their pedagogical skills, as well as making use of the Teacher Work Attachment to broaden their perspectives and outlook beyond the school environment.
MOE will continue to support the professional upgrading of our officers. From October 2008, MOE will double the current interest-free study loan amounts for both local part-time studies as well as local and overseas full-time studies. Currently, teachers can apply for a variety of study loans, grants, awards and scholarships for professional upgrading.
Introducing a New Allied Educators Scheme
To strengthen the professionalism of the school team, MOE will introduce a new Allied Educators Scheme (AES) from 1 Jan 2009 to attract, motivate and retain good quality people to be Allied Educators (AEDs).
Today, the allied educators working in our schools include Full-time School Counsellors (FTSCs), Special Needs Officers (SNOs) and Education Associates (EDAs). Allied educators are important members of the school team. They work closely with teachers to ensure the holistic development of our students. Currently, there are about 600 allied educators in our schools2”. MOE aims to increase the number of allied educators four-fold to 2,800 by 2016.
Under the new scheme, the salaries of the AEDs will be benchmarked to the market to ensure competitiveness. They will enjoy the school holiday scheme. AEDs will also benefit from better career development and advancement opportunities. Outstanding AEDs can aspire to progress up to positions of superscale grade in MOE HQ.
With the introduction of the AES, the designation of FTSCs, SNOs and EDAs will also be revised from 1 Jan 2009 (refer to table below) to foster a sense of belonging to the larger AED family.
| Previous Designation | New Designation (with effect from 1 Jan 09) |
|---|---|
| Full-Time School Counsellors (FTSCs) | Allied Educator (Counselling) [AED (Counselling)] |
| Special Needs Officers (SNOs) | Allied Educator (Learning and Behavioural Support) [AED (LBS)] |
| Education Associates (EDAs) | Allied Educator (Teaching and Learning) [AED (TL)] |
More Allied Educators (Teaching and Learning) to Support Schools
MOE will provide more Allied Educators (Teaching and Learning) [AED (TL)s] to primary and secondary schools, to support teachers in enhancing students’ learning. While teachers remain overall responsible for the total development of students, AED(TL)s will help co-teach with teachers in classes from Primary 3 level onwards, assist teachers in providing pastoral care and support to students, assist with managing co-curricular activities or undertake a mixture of these duties.
This year, AED(TL)s, previously known as EDAs, were deployed to 87 secondary schools to co-teach the Normal curriculum with teachers. They have provided invaluable help to teachers. Hence, the pool of AED(TL)s will be expanded so that all schools will benefit from the additional manpower resources. Deployment of AED(TL)s will be extended to all schools in phases and by end 2015, they will eventually number about 1,900. Primary schools with an average enrolment of 1,600 pupils (or about 1,000 Primary 3 to Primary 6 pupils) will receive 5 AED(TL)s. Secondary schools with an average enrolment of 1,400 students will receive 7 AED(TL)s.
AED(TL)s must have post-secondary qualifications with credits in English and Maths and possess the passion, aptitude and skills to teach different groups of students. MOE will provide a structured pre-service training programme to equip AED(TL)s with basic teaching skills.
Footnote
- Including teachers recruited into National Institute of Education (NIE)’s Bachelor of Arts/ Bachelor of Science in Education degree programme. ↵
- There are 597 AEDs currently. Of these, 340 are AED(Counselling)s, 166 are AED(LBS)s and 91 are AED(TL)s. ↵