Speeches
Speech by Dr Ng Eng Hen, Minister for Education and Second Minister for Defence, at the 2008 Senior Education Officer Promotion Ceremony on Monday, 7 April 2008 at 3.30pm at the Suntec Singapore Ballroom
Ms Grace Fu, Senior Minister of State for National Development and Education
Mr Masagos Zulkifli, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education and Home Affairs
Mrs Tan Ching Yee, Permanent Secretary
Ms Yeoh Chee Yan, Second Permanent Secretary
Miss Seah Jiak Choo, Director-General of Education
Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to be with you today on this happy occasion. Many of you would know I started work at MOE less than a week ago. I am quite delighted that my first official function on returning to MOE is to acknowledge the good work of teachers at this promotion ceremony. This is most appropriate and fitting because ultimately, the quality of teachers and Principals determine the standard of any education system. Show me a weak education system anywhere, and without exception, you will find as a cause, an equally weak and demoralised teaching force. The corollary is also true - as I have noticed in my past travels to other countries with strong educational systems. Invariably, we found passionate, competent and caring teachers at the heart of their success. That our students do well and that our standards are well regarded internationally bear positive testament to the professionalism and commitment that exist in our teaching force.
I extend my warmest congratulations to the 7,516 MOE officers who have earned their promotions this year. They comprise 7,347 Education Officers and 169 Executive and Administrative Staff of equivalent grades. Among them, 1,040 Education Officers have been promoted into and within the Superscale and Senior Education Officer (SEO) Grades.
2008 Education Service Promotions
Miss Seah Jiak Choo, Director-General of Education, has been promoted to the substantive grade of Superscale C. I was 2M at MOE when Jiak Choo took over as DGE, so I know of the calibre and strength of her leadership. Over the last few years, our schools and institutions have undergone a transformation. One signature programme, which Jiak Choo drove, that enabled this change was the SEED (Strategies for Effective Engagement and Development of Pupils in Primary Schools) programme introduced in 2004 for the lower primary level. This has helped to increase pupil engagement and enabled teachers to be more effective. I am aware that change is never easy, and there have been quite a few in MOE these past years. Her leadership has provided a steady and calming force that enabled our school system to smoothly shift gears and in some critical areas, even the direction..
These changes which provide more opportunities for our young to develop their varied talents and leave the school system as confident and productive citizens are for the better. But it also means higher expectations of our Education Officers. I think this is why Jiak Choo as DGE has fervently supported and encouraged the professional and leadership development of teachers. The Education Leadership Development Centre, structured mentoring programme for beginning teachers, enhanced full-pay professional development leave scheme, School Staff Developer, white space and research activist scheme are a few examples of initiatives under her tenure.
I fully support what DGE is trying to accomplish in this area of professional development. I have been often asked what my priorities are as the new Minister for Education. In Singapore, it is quipped that every other person is an educationist - the other half are studying to qualify soon! Like them, I would have certain preformed views, but I decided it was better to listen and learn - from administrators, Principals, teachers, students and their parents - to glean fresh perspectives. This I will continue to do over the next few months. As a start, I asked our two PSes and Jiak Choo what they considered paramount in improving our educational system. I was reassured that all of them were deeply convinced that we needed to further enhance the teaching profession to take our education system forward. I am happy to concur with them, and enhancing the teaching profession will remain one of my top priorities. I also agree with them that this is a critical area that needs constant monitoring and review. I would like to congratulate Jiak Choo on her well-deserved promotion. But I also hope that I can count on her continuing service to help MOE find ways to make teaching a choice career for Singaporeans. This is worth doing well. Because when caring and committed teachers are well-trained, well-motivated and well-supported, everything else will flow from it. Therefore, to help our children develop to their full potential, they need and deserve the best teachers.
State of the Education Service
The Education Service has grown from strength to strength over the last 5 years. There were 29,000 teachers as at December last year, a 10% increase compared to the 26,300 in 2003. In 2007, we recruited 2,828 candidates into the teaching service, an increase from 2,591 in 2006. 3 teachers out of every 4 today are graduates, compared to 2 out of every 3 five years ago.
We must offer good career prospects to attract and retain teachers and leaders. The 3 career tracks in the Education Service have provided staff with more pathways for progression. Last year, the Ministry appointed 36 new Principals. This year, 72 Principals will be promoted.
On the teaching track, Mdm Aw Wai Lin, will be appointed to Master Teacher Level 2, the pinnacle appointment of the Teaching Track introduced under the GROW package in 2006. We have appointed another 3 Master Teachers, bringing the total number of Master Teachers to 21. In addition, there are 52 Senior Teachers amongst the 616 officers promoted to the SEO 1 substantive grade. We now have a total of 915 Senior Teachers in the Education Service. The Ministry has also appointed 15 more Senior Specialists with effect from 1st April 2008. With these appointments, we now have a total of 101 Senior Specialists who apply leading research in various fields to raise the quality of education we deliver in Singapore.
Enhancing the Education Service - GROW 2.0
The GROW 2.0 package underscores MOE’s commitment and strategy to develop the teachers and school leaders who form the cornerstone of our high-performing education system. They, together with a dedicated corps of Executive and Administrative Staff (EAS), are the key to all that we have achieved in Education and need to take us forward. Let me now provide an update on the implementation of the key initiatives in the GROW 2.0 package, which was rolled out last December.
Paying Teachers Competitively
Firstly, we have enhanced teachers’ pay to match market benchmarks and introduced a new Education Scheme of Service (2008) from 1 April 2008. I am heartened to note that over 93% of our trained Education Officers had opted for the new Scheme.
Supporting Professional Development
Secondly, new initiatives In GROW 2.0 were introduced to enhance Professional Development. Teachers are already making good use of these schemes. For example, the number of teachers embarking on PD Leave has jumped from 63 in 2006, to 219 in 2007 and 168 in the first 2 months of 2008. Individual examples better illustrate the positive effects of these schemes.
Mr Pang Kah Hock, a Subject Head teaching Chinese at Nanyang Junior College (NYJC), took 8 months of PDL last year to complete his PhD in Chinese Linguistics from Fudan University. This enabled Kah Hock to more ably coordinate the Chinese Language Elective Programme at NYJC and refined its Chinese Language curriculum and pedagogies to suit the learning needs of his students.
Ms Rezia Rahumathullah, a teacher from Da Qiao Primary School, completed a Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics from NTU through the Professional Development and Continuum Models (PDCM) scheme. Inspired by the exciting ideas she was exposed to during her Masters programme, Rezia has conducted an action research project on a reading strategy for vocabulary acquisition, which she will present at the annual Regional Language Centre (RELC) language conference later this month.
As we broadened the curriculum for our students, we will need teachers who have the subject expertise to effectively mentor them, including the ability to supervise new research projects. One such example is Dr Yap Ann Teck, a biology teacher from Dunman High School. Dr Yap was a Biology teacher who completed his part-time PhD studies in 2003 when he was teaching in Raffles Junior College. He left the teaching service in 2005 for the Centre for Molecular Medicine at A*STAR to undertake research work, before re-joining the teaching service last year. Drawing on his academic and research experience, Dr Yap has developed a Life Sciences Research laboratory and introduced X3 (Xperience, Xperiment and Xplore), a new CCA that focuses on scientific research at Dunman High. He also advises students about career opportunities in field of research and plans to leverage on his expertise to start a school-based H3 programme. We want more teachers like Dr Yap and will encourage not only more Senior Specialists but also teachers to pursue Masters by Research and PhDs.
These efforts have had catalytic effects such that non-graduate officers have also been motivated to upgrade themselves academically. To date, more than 25% of our non-graduate Education Officers have upgraded themselves academically and have been emplaced on the graduate salary scale. For example, Mr Shahul Hameed Maricar, a Tamil Language teacher from Bedok View Secondary School, pursued a 3-year full-time Tamil Language degree programme at the Madurai Kamaraj University in India. He had to adapt quickly to a foreign environment and a different learning culture. As he embarks on a Master in Education (Secondary) programme at NIE, Shahul can draw from his own life experience to inspire his students with his determination and resilience.
Enhancing Work-Life Harmony
A third integral limb of the GROW 2.0 package provided more avenues and flexible work schedules to help teachers balance other commitments at home and in other social areas. The GROW 2.0 package enhanced the no-pay leave provisions and extended the Part-Time Teaching Scheme (PTTS) to key personnel in schools, while the Staff Well-Being Unit in the Training and Development Division has organised a series of OLive (Opportunities for Lives to be Ignited with Vitality and Exuberance) activities for both our Education Officers and EAS colleagues. Principals on their own are adding to these efforts. For instance, the time-tabling committee at Chung Cheng High School (Main) considers special requests from part-time teachers for specific working days and blocks off time for teachers who have to see to family commitments during school hours.
Flexible work schedules can be effectively employed to achieve productive outcomes - both for the school and the teacher. Let me highlight two schools which illustrate different methods to achieve this. There are 13 part-time teachers at Nanyang Primary School. Some start later in the morning and continue with overseeing CCAs in the afternoon, while others do not take on CCAs but serve as form teachers and play an active role in looking into the well-being of the pupils. To support its part-time teachers, the school has engaged adjunct teachers, teacher assistants and relief teachers using its manpower grant.
At Paya Lebar Methodist Girls’ Secondary School, there are 5 part-time teachers who teach for 3 days of each week, thereby freeing up other days of the week for them to be with their family. These part-time teachers are also assigned CCAs where much of the preparatory work can be done at home e.g. cyber-wellness coordinator for the school and arranging career talks for students. The school has also made use of their available funds to engage relief teachers and teacher aides.
I encourage more schools to adopt flexible work arrangements, and to share their ideas and innovations. This way, we learn faster what works best and avoid the mistakes of others.
Developing Partners in Education
To build up a quality teaching force, we must also have high calibre Executive and Administrative Staff to create the necessary pre-conditions that allow teachers to teach effectively, and students to learn more. Good policies and well-built schools can multiply the efforts of teachers.
MOE with the Public Service Division has reviewed the generic schemes of service and enhanced the terms of the Management Executive Scheme, Management Support Scheme and Technical Support Scheme to ensure that we continue to attract and retain good EAS officers.
Beyond GROW 2.0
GROW 2.0 has helped us to keep the quality of our teaching force high. But as with operating systems in computers, we will always need upgraded versions to cater to new platforms and demands. I have concerns: Will we be able to continue to attract sufficient numbers of high quality graduates with the right attributes as teachers? How do we effectively compete with other industries especially when the labour market is tight and other opportunities abound? What new capabilities are needed for teachers even as we seek to expand the horizons of our students? What impact will societal change - higher divorce rates, dysfunctional families - have on student performance? How do we help children from such families stay in the educational system and break the poverty cycle? Again, where do I find enough educators with the commitment and values for this task, when they could be doing other equally fulfilling jobs?
In the coming weeks and months, my colleagues and I will talk to as many of our educators as possible, to understand your hopes and aspirations, what you see as the key enablers that will allow you to do your best. We will also ask young people what will motivate them to see teaching as a career of choice.
I would like to end with a personal anecdote. Two years ago, I temporarily left MOE, with that deep impression which still remains to this day, that teaching - or better, educating or nurturing - was one of those occupations which required a very personal delivery of services. To be a good practitioner, one required a combination of heart and head. I understand a bit of that. I remember returning from the US over 15 years ago having trained in a world renowned Cancer Centre. Brimming with cutting-edge technologies and expertise, I sought to help patients and their relatives - impress, would be a better word - with the latest surgical technique and charts. When a cancer patient asked how long more they had to live after treatment, I provided precise information - 5 year and 10 year survival data and percentages - rather than assurance. Thankfully, I impressed few, if any, and decided to change my practice. I did so not because my surgical skills were found wanting, or that I had breached any medical code of conduct. I changed because I wanted a different and more effective outcome. I found ways to communicate the same truth to the patient and her family - because no man or student is an isolated entity. So when I needed to explain the condition, I would always insist that the spouse be there to listen. In fact, I would prefer the husband to be there for minor procedures (unless they opted out for fear of fainting!). When asked how long they would live, I responded differently from before. I would reply by asking what book they were reading. I would say get a thicker book, because they would be able to finish that book; or that they would live to see their children graduate and even their grandchildren marry. I was once asked by a fearful cancer patient if she should change careers. I egged her to go for it. My method was less precise and clinical, but it had exactly the effect that was needed. To provide hope, to spur them to achieve greater things; to feel better about themselves; for them to be less self-absorbed and to be more giving. I know that there are many in this room who can share similar experiences and personal epiphanies as teachers. Teachers, like doctors, are often placed in positions of great opportunity and responsibility, to be able to influence and change lives.
Conclusion
Our greatest strength in education is our teachers who are committed to their calling as educators, who quietly and daily nurture and inspire their students. Our system is not perfect, and often we wish that it will move faster. But we have come a long way and achieved much since the educational reforms started by Dr Goh Keng Swee in the 1980s. We have maintained and increased the stature of teachers as a respected and worthwhile profession. I am happy to learn that we even have families of teachers. For example, - Mark, Marvin and Martin Chan - among this year’s promotees are brothers. Mark is a Vice-Principal at Jurong Secondary School, while his younger brothers Marvin and Martin are Heads of Department at North Vista Secondary School and Ping Yi Secondary School. One of my top priorities is to make teaching a preferred career choice. I do not under-estimate this challenge and will need all your help to achieve this. Let’s continue together on this worthy task to deliver a holistic education for every child and for our education system to soar to greater heights.
On this note, let me once again congratulate all the officers who have been promoted this year. Keep up the good work!