Speech by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Minister for Education at the NIE teachers Investiture Ceremony on Thursday, 26 Jan 2006, at 10:00am at Nanyang Auditorium, Nanyang Technological University

SPEECH BY MR THARMAN SHANMUGARATNAM, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AT THE NIE TEACHERS INVESTITURE CEREMONY ON THURSDAY, 26 JANUARY 2006, AT 10.00 AM AT NANYANG AUDITORIUM, NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

I extend my warmest congratulations this morning to 364 new teachers who formally join ranks with their fellow educators in the Singapore Education Service today. Let me welcome you, on behalf of all my colleagues at MOE, to the education fraternity.

2 You are entering a profession with the unique responsibility of nurturing the talents and energies that will create our future as a nation. You are also entering the profession at an exciting time for education.

3 We are moving towards a system focused on quality rather than quantity. Students are being given more diverse opportunities to discover their talents and take them far - along new pathways or through new electives and courses, in our schools as well as our tertiary institutions. Schools are differentiating themselves. They are developing their own niches of excellence, in CCA as well as in the curriculum, and exercising greater autonomy to select students with interests that match what the school aspires to develop. They are also being given the flexibility to tailor new school and classroom designs to match their teaching and learning strategies.

4 But the most important changes in education do not lie in new structures or pathways or admission systems. Neither are they just about reducing the syllabus or the focus on examinations. At the heart of a quality education is the teacher, and his or her art of teaching - the way each of you enthuse and interact with your students, within the classroom, in your e-mails, or out on the football field. Education is about each of you, and what you do to spur your students to spread their wings and soar.

5 Starting out in any profession is tough. Particularly in teaching, because a teacher makes so many simultaneous, on-the-spot decisions, while ensuring that "learning" really happens in class. Some challenges are mundane, like how to get a point across when white-board pens get leaky or go out of ink. Others are intuitive, such as evaluating if one student needs more attention or a different approach from the rest of the class.

6 MOE has been looking into how we can help our beginning teachers move up the learning curve. We spoke with beginning teachers who gave us some insights about their experiences when they started out.

7 Imran Sabudullah of Queenstown Secondary found that to be a good teacher, he needed to multi-task, and ensure that at the end of the day, he does not burn out. Kuhnedran Varatharajasinga, at St Hilda's Secondary, spoke about how beginning teachers can easily get lost when they first enter a school - "The school is fairly big and there are many processes that happen within the school. But when a teacher enters the school, you do not really know where you belong and how these processes come into play. And at this point, you are kind of lost." But like other teachers starting out, they showed great gumption. And despite the challenges they face, our beginning teachers find their experiences rewarding. Some are motivated by the moments when their students' eyes light up with understanding. For others, like Ian Kwok of St Hilda's Secondary, it was the joy of seeing his students learn volleyball skills and tactics, and values like discipline and trust.

8 What will be particularly useful for you, as beginning teachers, is for you to be able to tap on the collective experiences and resources of everyone in the school. Teaching is a learning profession, more than any other. You sharpen your craft by learning, and you keep learning through your career. Just when you have cleared one learning curve, you hop onto another. But teaching is also a collaborative profession like no other. You learn from others in the profession - through observation, mutual feedback and sharing of lesson plans and teaching techniques. And through collaboration, teachers push the envelope, create new learning curves for each other and raise their expertise as a group. So this must be our priority - to help teachers move up their learning curves, and give them space to reflect and to share lessons and techniques so that the profession keeps moving up in quality.

9 Other countries share the desire to help beginning teachers to learn and develop. New teachers receive a reduced teaching load in many countries - just as they do here. In

Switzerland

, there is an array of practices to induct a new teacher, including structured networking within 'practice groups' of about half a dozen teachers; and one-on-one mentoring in classroom practices. Induction focuses on a teacher's personal development matter as much as their professional training. In

Japan

, beginning teachers are assigned "guiding teachers" who closely monitor and critique their teaching. The "guiding teacher" is the key to the development of skills in Japanese schools.

10 In

China

, the emphasis is also on teachers as learners, supported by a strong collaborative and collective culture. The teaching culture features research groups and collective lesson planning. Both experienced and beginning teachers conduct public or "open" lessons, and go through post-lesson debriefing and discussion.

11 In

New Zealand

, there is a well-established 20-year programme called the Advice and Guidance programme. Both experienced teachers and school-level administrators invest effort in supporting beginning teachers in their initial two years of teaching. Provisionally registered teachers must document the support they received during those two years, when they apply for a permanent certificate.

12 It is worthwhile for us to study how new teachers are inducted in these countries, understand their similarities and differences, and draw out effective practices to see how they could be relevant to us as we implement our own improvements. In a number of countries, the induction and mentoring processes for beginning teachers are highly structured, comprehensive, and rigorous. The fact that new teachers often need to document their learning imbues in them the habit of reflective learning. Mentors are not just a safety net for teachers to get day-to-day survival tips from. Dialogue and discussion with mentors are an integral part of the total learning process for the beginning professional.

13 Significantly, the success of a mentoring programme depends on whether collaborative work is understood and fostered as part of the teaching culture. The most effective mentoring programmes are those supported by a culture where staff member, school leader, experienced teacher and the new teacher share a sense of growing together as a community of learners. Experiences, practices, tools of the trade are shared among teachers - engendering in them a group identity.

14 This culture is in practice in many our schools. In particular, we see school leaders, heads of departments, senior and experienced teachers often coming together to actively help their beginning teachers on their journey to becoming effective professionals.

15 For example, in Punggol Primary and Zhenghua Secondary, the school management team and experienced teachers give beginning teachers advice on effective teaching strategies that build basic competencies such as classroom management and subject pedagogy. Many schools, like Rulang Primary and Queenstown Secondary for example, also encourage peer observation for more experienced teachers to model good classroom instruction practices.

16 The lessons flow in all directions. Consistently, we are told that not only do the new teachers get help in bridging the gap between theory and practice in everyday teaching, but their mentors also catch refreshing ideas from the newbies too. Ms Chong Lin Lin, mentor at Zhenghua Secondary Schooltold us she found herself reflecting on her own teaching strategies when she observed the lessons of beginning teachers.

17 Mentors and teaching peers in many schools are also giving our new teachers guidance in other aspects of the job which are no less important, including student pastoral care, basic counselling skills, and communicating with parents.

STRENGTHENING TEACHER DEVELOPMENT - IMPLEMENTING A STRUCTURED MENTORING PROGRAMME FOR BEGINNING TEACHERS

18 Last year, we announced at MOE's Workplan Seminar that teachers will be getting more support for professional development. This includes offloading experienced teachers such as Senior Teachers or Heads of Departments, to mentor beginning teachers. Since then, project teams have looked into the key areas which need more support.

19 We went to some school leaders, Master and Senior Teachers, experienced teachers, and teachers in their first two years of service, and asked them for ideas on what else they could do to help develop beginning teachers as yourselves. Mr Lim Kuan Min, Principal, Zhenghua Secondary was of the view that with a structured progamme of induction and mentoring, beginning teachers would be more confident in the classroom. They would know that there is a system of support they can turn to. He also said that beginning teachers would be more reflective and professionally-engaged if the system could also provide them with platforms, such as the Learning Circles, to share their experiences and how they can improve their teaching skills.

20 Likewise, passionate mentors like Mdm Rita Chia of Chongfu Primary, Mrs Jane Chan of Rulang Primary, Mdm Teoh Paik Hong of Queenstown Secondary and Ms Pearly Chai of Punggol Primary all felt that a properly thought-out and structured programme would enable them to spend time to pass on their passion and skills in teaching to younger teachers.

21 What these diverse groups of teaching practitioners told us is that a systematic approach to inducting new teachers, with a strong focus on school-level mentoring, will help. MOE has therefore developed a structured mentoring programme, or SMP for short, for beginning teachers. The SMP will be launched tomorrow by the Director General of Education, Miss Seah Jiak Choo.

22 The SMP contains three components - induction, school-level mentoring, and provision of learning programmes specifically aimed at the beginning teacher. This will ensure that you receive guidance and support to start off well in your teaching career.

23 For a start, MOE will focus on the 200 or so beginning teachers who were posted to secondary schools at the start of this year. Resource packages containing tips, good practices and useful information on mentoring that works will be provided to your mentors. MOE will monitor the implementation and gather feedback from you, your mentors and your school leaders. The lessons learnt will be shared with all mentors and school leaders for the next cohort of 1800 beginning teachers who will be posted to schools in the middle of this year.

24 MOE will organise training in mentoring and coaching skills for mentors who are untrained. We will also phase into our schools additional teacher provisions, to give experienced teachers more time to mentor their newer colleagues. To get additional resources to offload mentors, schools can also bring in more adjunct teachers - these are former trained teachers who re-join the education service.

25 I urge you to maximise the support that you will be given through this programme, and pick up tips and tools of the trade from your mentors and other experienced colleagues. Work with your mentors and let them bring out the best in you. Your enthusiasm and fresh ideas in the classroom and beyond will be a bonus to your school. Explore new ways of engaging your students, beyond the tried and tested. I am confident that many of you will bring many welcome fresh insights into the profession.

26 Another area of professional development concerns the affective side of learning. Last year around this time, I spoke to another set of newly-inducted teachers, on how the December 2004 tsunami brought about in us a collective desire to clue our students into what makes us human - our values, our collective responsibilities to each other and society, our ability to extend a helping hand to those in need. I noted that it was good to see a pioneer batch of NIE trainees involved in the Group Endeavours in Service Learning (GESL).

27 This morning, I am happy to see among you the members of this pioneer service-learning group. Your hands-on experiences in various community projects will I am sure prove to be useful in the classroom, and pave the way for your students who get involved in their own service-learning projects.

28 Social and emotional learning - or SEL, for short - is vital to developing attributes and values in our young that they will take with them many years after they leave school. NIE now incorporates an SEL component within the GESL and practicum. Looking ahead, I am glad to note that NIE will integrate SEL within the overall pre-service training for teachers from July 2007. Not only that, starting April this year, NIE will introduce new courses that help equip teachers to teach these core SEL skills.

29 About two years ago, we also announced that to help teachers aspiring for higher certification, NIE would develop modules for the Professional Development Continuum Model - the PDCM for short. I am very happy to see that more than 380 teachers have since made use of the PDCM to achieve advanced certifications in a wide-ranging number of subjects.

30 With that, let me conclude by encouraging you to make full use of the various opportunities to keep developing yourselves professionally. I know that being a good teacher is a challenging task. It takes effort and dedication, as well as a willingness to experiment with new ways to motivate students and excite them in their learning. Aim to leave an impression on the students under your charge so that they will not just remember you as a teacher who imparted skills, but as someone who gave them confidence in themselves, helped them to discover strengths they never knew they had, and spurred them to contribute to something larger than themselves.

31 Once again, let me congratulate each and everyone of you and welcome you to the teaching profession. I wish you a meaningful and fulfilling career.