According to a parliamentary response by Minister of State for Education Janil Puthucheary today (Nov 7), teachers in Singapore are not overloaded with work and that it is not “commonly cited” as reason for resignation.
“Workload is not commonly cited as a reason for teachers leaving the service. Instead, the main reasons for resignations range from family considerations like childcare, to a desire for a change of job.”
Minister Janil Puthucheary then said there is no resignation problem among Singapore teachers because his education ministry’s statistics showed that “resignation rates have remained low at around 2% to 3% a year over the decade”.
The Minister of State also claimed that the Education Ministry has always looked after teachers well:
“MOE has consistently paid close attention to teachers in ensuring that they are fairly remunerated, provided with developmental opportunities to grow their careers, and are taken care of in terms of their well-being. For one, MOE regularly reviews teachers’ salaries to ensure they remain market-competitive. In the last salary review in October 2015, eligible teachers had a monthly salary increase of 4 to 9 per cent.”
Minister Janil Puthucheary then dismiss a recent annual teacher satisfaction survey result that founded a key complain about workload, blaming the teachers for their own “perceptive”:
“There was interestingly a big group of teachers within the survey who recorded that they felt that their value and the respect with which they were accorded was reducing. And yet, this would not stop them continuing within the teaching profession, and they found this a very meaningful profession.”