Press Releases
Investing in Educators
Education is the key to maintaining Singapore’s competitive edge. To build capacity for the long term and to uplift the quality of education in our schools, it is important for the Ministry of Education (MOE) to continually invest in educators.
The current economic situation presents a window of opportunity for MOE to step up recruitment efforts and attract more passionate and talented individuals seeking a meaningful career as educators in our schools and post-secondary institutions. A new training pathway for kindergarten teachers will also be introduced to attract better-qualified people to the kindergarten sector.
Stepping Up Recruitment of Teachers and Education Professionals
In 2009, MOE will raise the teacher recruitment target to 3,000. Despite a tight labour market in the first half of 2008, MOE recruited 2,400 teachers, exceeding the annual recruitment target of 2,200 in recent years. The increase in the recruitment target for 2009 opens up more positions for aspiring individuals with the passion and aptitude to teach. With more teachers, schools will be able to improve their pupil-teacher ratios, further enrich their students’ learning experience and provide more time for existing teachers to enhance their professional development.
MOE will also enlarge and expedite the recruitment for Allied Educators (AEDs) who partner teachers in providing specialised support in areas such as counselling, teaching and learning and special educational needs. Currently, there are about 600 AEDs in our schools1. At the MOE Work Plan Seminar in September 2008, MOE had announced plans to increase the number of AEDs four-fold to 2,800 by 2016. In light of the economic downturn, MOE will bring forward this recruitment target by one year, to 2015.
MOE will raise the recruitment target for AED (Teaching and Learning) from 300 to 500 this year. All AEDs will receive fully sponsored training at the National Institute of Education to prepare for their specialised roles in school.
The post-secondary institutions, namely, the Institute of Technical Education, Polytechnics and Autonomous Universities will also step up recruitment to hire qualified individuals with industry experience and a passion for nurturing young people so as to improve faculty-student ratio.
Attracting mid-career entrants and young graduates into the education sector
Many of our mid-career officers are making a positive contribution to our schools and increasingly taking up key positions in schools and MOE Headquarters. School leaders have found that mid-career teachers inject a greater diversity of experiences and perspectives which has enriched the learning for our students. A number of mid-career professionals with leadership and managerial experience have also joined our schools as Vice Principal (Administration).
MOE will be launching the Language Facilitator Scheme in mid 2009 which will offer more opportunities for mid-career professionals interested in a career switch to the education sector. To boost the overall language proficiency of our students, particularly their oracy skills, MOE will be piloting the Language Facilitator Scheme in 5 primary schools - Bendemeer Primary, Canossa Convent Primary, Kheng Cheng School, St. Andrew’s Junior and St. Gabriel’s Primary — for at least six months, starting from Term 2 in 2009.
Graduates with professional qualifications in communications or those who can demonstrate a high level of proficiency in the spoken language will be recruited as language facilitators. These facilitators will complement and support our language teachers, e.g. by conducting before or after-school enrichment lessons in areas such as oral presentation, drama or story-telling.
High-calibre young graduates who are keen to make a contribution to education policy can also consider joining MOE Headquarters as Education Policy Analysts. They will have the opportunity to review and shape education policy which covers a wide range of issues including school and higher education policy, MOE’s talent attraction and retention efforts, school development planning and education finance.
An Accelerated Training Path into the Kindergarten Sector
MOE will work with Singapore Polytechnic to develop a new Advanced Diploma in Kindergarten Education-Teaching (ADKET), aimed at attracting qualified mid-career entrants and fresh graduates to teach in kindergartens. 80 to 100 training places will be available for the ADKET this year, starting in April 2009.
Trainees in the new ADKET course will complete their training in 700 to 900 hours, or approximately 10 months. This is about half the time taken for the existing Specialist Diploma in Early Childhood Care and Education (SDECCE), which lasts 1,600 hours over two or three years. The SDECCE programme is designed to prepare graduates and diploma holders to teach and lead in kindergartens and childcare centres while the ADKET programme will focus on the educational aspects of teaching children at pre-school, especially curriculum knowledge and teaching methods. This will ensure that the trainees have the competencies and skills to teach young children effectively. The changes are summarised in Table 1.
Table 1:
| Specialist Diploma in Early Childhood Care & Education | ADKET (New) | |
|---|---|---|
| Training hours | 1,600 | 900 (fresh graduates) 700 (mid-career) |
| Coverage | Educational Leadership Custodial Care |
Educational |
Trainees in the ADKET course will first undergo a 2-week full-time starter course to familiarise themselves with the kindergarten environment, including working with young children. They will then undergo a work-and-train segment in which they co-teach at a kindergarten in the mornings and attend lessons in the afternoons.
To be eligible for the ADKET course, interested applicants must first be registered as temporary teachers with any MOE-registered kindergarten. In addition, applicants must have either a 3-year polytechnic diploma with at least a credit in GCE ‘O’ level English as a first language, or a university degree where the medium of instruction is English. The course is open to fresh graduates and polytechnic diploma holders, as well as mid-career professionals.
Conclusion
As a whole, the education sector will be providing around 7,500 jobs in kindergartens, schools and post-secondary institutions. About half the jobs are teaching, teaching-support and administrative jobs in MOE. The rest of the jobs are for academic and research, and non-academic positions in the Institute of Technical Education, Polytechnics and Autonomous Universities and kindergarten teachers in the kindergartens.
Footnote
- Of the 600 AEDs, 345 are AEDs (Counselling), 165 are AEDs (Learning and Behavioural Support)) and 90 are AEDs (Teaching and Learning).↵