Happy Teachers' Day
Today is Teachers' Day in Singapore, and since education has been declared a key focus in the forward development of the nation, the Prime Minister delivered a Teachers' Day Rally speech.
The nation's future is in the hands of our teachers, since it is them that mould our future generation. In the speech, were a few key strategies, like more training and development for teachers. However, there was nothing concrete is being done to address teacher retention.
For the benefit of those who have never been through teacher training, all trainees enter into a bond with the government for three years, once they go through the postgraduate diploma course in teaching. Most do not stay a day longer than three years. Which is why the National Institute of Education is always exploding at her seams with trainees, and yet we perennially have a shortage of teachers.
One would think that solving teacher retention, would reduce the load on NIE, and help the students get more experienced teachers. Surely a more experienced education professional would deliver a better job, than someone wet behind their ears.
Rather than helping teachers stay on in their jobs, and gain experience, there are more and more training programmes for them to attend. However, if you talk to teachers who have left the profession, you would find that their reasons for departure are the tons of administration, CCA responsibilities, etc. Things that are not really teaching related, but get dumped on teachers. So, instead of solving a problem, we seem to be ignoring the real source of the problem.
Back to the six million dollar question: Is the government really intent on developing a better education system in Singapore, or do they just want to be seen doing something (since they do not know how to go about it)?
The nation's future is in the hands of our teachers, since it is them that mould our future generation. In the speech, were a few key strategies, like more training and development for teachers. However, there was nothing concrete is being done to address teacher retention.
For the benefit of those who have never been through teacher training, all trainees enter into a bond with the government for three years, once they go through the postgraduate diploma course in teaching. Most do not stay a day longer than three years. Which is why the National Institute of Education is always exploding at her seams with trainees, and yet we perennially have a shortage of teachers.
One would think that solving teacher retention, would reduce the load on NIE, and help the students get more experienced teachers. Surely a more experienced education professional would deliver a better job, than someone wet behind their ears.
Rather than helping teachers stay on in their jobs, and gain experience, there are more and more training programmes for them to attend. However, if you talk to teachers who have left the profession, you would find that their reasons for departure are the tons of administration, CCA responsibilities, etc. Things that are not really teaching related, but get dumped on teachers. So, instead of solving a problem, we seem to be ignoring the real source of the problem.
Back to the six million dollar question: Is the government really intent on developing a better education system in Singapore, or do they just want to be seen doing something (since they do not know how to go about it)?