Yea, CEP can only be raised 1 level per year and promotions nowadays have longer Year-In-Service/Grade.

If they slack off and fall short of expectations, then put them on performance review for their appointment. If they still can't meet expectations, have them step down.

For as long as they are meeting expectations, they should be paid at their establishment grade. It's called estab grade for a reason.

But that's because people are skewed towards thinking that academic success = leadership potential. How many capable people are hampered by the lack of academic credentials. So this is a self fulfilling prophecy.

Exactly.

The implementation is completely broken.

SEO grades by design, are not permanent grades. Officers have to relinquish their SEO grade when they step down from their appointments.
If SEOs are expected to be KPs, with KRAs written based on paygrades as opposed to appointments, it would make sense to expect the reverse too, where KPs should be SEOs.

Don't really see what's the big fuss with promoting people directly to SEO. Especially with the addition of GEO5A, it shows that the system does allow for skipping of grades.

If someone after being appointed as KP, is not performing up to the KRAs expected for that role, then penalise them during performance reviews. That's the whole purpose of having a performance appraisal system in the first place right?

Elsewhere, barring the short window during probation, there is no such nonsense.

Paygrade and appointments are basically pegged to each other.

Otherwise, they should review the KRAs expected for different paygrades.

SH/LH slack off once they get confirmed: yes, this is a real problem in some schools, but it's not a widespread problem.

Are you suggesting that because some young KPs slack off, therefore, collective punishment is warranted for all young KPs? What's so hard about recognising and compensating those who are performing up to standard, while penalising only those who fail to do so? Why are we so obsessed with this idea of common misery/collective suffering?

Good idea sial. If it takes a GEO5 confirmed KP 2 years to hit SEO1, then maybe after they step down, they should continue to draw SEO1 pay for a further 2 years before reverting back to GEO5.

Fair and square mah. Where got so slow go up but immediately go down one.

i guess everything is about $$$ first?

delay promotion
cut increments
requiring higher workload for faster progression

isnt that the root cause of all these haha

Can any kind souls share their HQ experience, both the pros and cons of working in HQ. Am thinking of applying to HQ next year during open posting. Currently a SH with masters qualifications.

HQ so big, how to generalise? On the other hand if you specify ppl won't give good responses because they don't want to doxx themselves.

You should ask yourself what you want to do in hq first. Don't see hq as a place to escape school. You'll be on for a miserable 3 years.

Just want to hear some honest experiences from fellow colleagues who had prior experiences or currently in HQ regardless of the divisions they were in.

Definitely not to escape school, it’s more of in pursuit of personal development more than anything else.

Start by exploring the descriptions of the different divisions and branches on Intranet?
Dynamics and experience in each branch really varies...

That would be a very ineffective system. Ez to just parachute well-liked but incapable officers straight to SEO1 just by means of appointing SH/LH. And if untested SEO1s cannot perform to expectations, you propose penalising them with bad performance grades? It'll create a new problem of a group incapable officers stuck at SEO1s. Starving off the opportunity of appointment/promotion for capable GEO5s. These young "capable" SH/LHs over-estimate how good they really are.

Totally understand where you are coming from, as if you don't have prior HQ experience, the whole thing can feel like a black box and make you uneasy about committing to a decision. But I must caution you not to buy too much into the 'stereotypes' about various HQ divisions, and honestly just make an educated gamble and go in to learn as much as you can.

Some stereotypes you might hear are: CPDD is very traditional and hierarchical and moves very slow. ETD people are on call 24/7 and everytime some new digital trend pops up, they will kena turn out like firefighters to rush to the scene. AST is a place where people go to shake leg and retire.

While stereotypes often bear partial truth, there is nothing like going in without any pre-conceived biases, experiencing it for yourself and finding your groove to contribute, and forming your own impressions and conclusions about the organisation.

Pros:
- Corporate work-life e.g. 9am - 6pm; typically weekends are not touched. Got peak and off-peak like school, but your working hours are fixed and regular (unless your boss disturbs u lol)

- Got vacation leave, so you can take leave any time of the year

- Exposure to complex work that teachers will never experience in sch. For eg, the need to consult multiple divisions and even external agencies to get a work piece moving. But you know for sure that your work will affect the larger educational landscape. When u go back to sch, you'll realise how sch is a cocooned environment

Cons:
- Hierarchal, so u will need multiple layers of clearance for slide decks. At HQ, a branch head or superintendent is not even considered "big". Divisional directors and above determine what are to be done or not. If u are a SH or HOD in school, u will just be a small fry at HQ lol.

- Unlike classroom teaching, you don't really get to choose the style that u want to teach your content - so a loss of autonomy is guaranteed, because how you do your work will be determined by your branch or division norms


(Speaking with exp, as a former HQ officer and now SH in sch)

Untested?

Nowadays majority of fresh KPs go through internal appointments for one or two years before being put up for interview if their performance is up to scratch. They could also be further evaluated for 1+ years after being confirmed, which is also the normal practice. This is way beyond "untested".

It is not unreasonable to make it such that if a KP is confirmed and appointed in Jan 2023, they are promoted to their estab grade by Apr 2024 if they perform up to all expectations of their appointment. If, and ONLY IF, they fall short in some domains, then delay their promotion until they improve. If they cannot improve, they must step down.

This "untested" mentality is a slippery slope. If we are so unsure about our people, let's have a 5 year probation period everytime someone takes on a higher appointment, before they can draw the appropriate salary at their paygrade. After all, if they can perform well for 5 years, it means they are good enough, right?

My POV as someone previously drawing responsibility allowance - it's not that bad; my time as a GEO4/5 KP allowed me to clock A/B pretty easily. It's harder now as a SEO1.

I've not really done the sums (so do could correct me if I'm wrong), but given the overlapping salary scales, the additional 1-2 months' PB could quite easily offset the 'lost income' from a direction promotion to SEO1, unless perhaps you are already at the ceiling of your GEO scale, or your performance would have also scored you A/B as a SEO1. I suspect for the majority of young KPs, the hypothetical financial loss isn't actually that big.

Really appreciate your kind sharing of your experience in HQ. Definitely shed some light on some of the queries I had. Possible to share with me, is it an overall positive experience for you? Do you enjoyed what you are doing in HQ as compared to what you did in school? After your HQ stint, do you feel that you value add to your current school in terms of the experience and insights you have gained in HQ? Do you feel handicapped in your teaching in your current school as some of the HQ division work may not not be directly related to IP area.

Does winning OCA (individual) count for anything that I can put on my cv? Or is just money?

Thanks for sharing your views and providing a sense of the numbers. Gives a different perspective to those who claim that they're losing out financially.

I suppose those who complain about Geos being unfairly penalised have no idea how hard it is to get A/B at the SEO level.Not surprising, after all these people are usually those who convince themselves that GEOs do everything and SEO shake leg and collect big bucks

Was this before COVID? Things are very different now. Just like how schools are complaining about overwork, it's the same in HQ.

No worries at all. My personal advice to you see to stay put as a SH in school.

Hi, I'm a current HQ officer in one of the professional wing divisions. What someone else said about curriculum divisions being more hierarchical and things moving slower is to some extent true. After all, curricular design and review is a continuous and cyclical process so you wouldn't expect massive and sudden jolts to the system happening frequently.

On the other hand, policy wing divisions and branches tend to be flatter in hierarchy and are perceived to be more fast-paced - but this all depends on the exact nature of your work.

As an SH, you would be a regular staff officer at HQ, so you would have to do the same kind of work as the GEO staff officers. I think it's drfinitely good to try a stint at HQ if the opportunity is available because it really gives you a greater sense of perspective of how everything in MOE works and why certain things are done the way they are. These are perspectives which may not be as easy to come by if you stay at the school level which is a very localised educational context.

If you are serious about HQ, a good trait to have is proactiveness. Don't just wait for your bosses to tell you what to do. That is one way to waste your stint getting by on bare minimum. Instead of asking "what do i do?", think about it first, prepare a concept and propose it, asking "what do you think?" I feel that kind of mindset has helped me grow a lot in HQ.

So for a start, instead of asking "what is life in HQ like?"... go to the MOE website, look at the organisational structure, read up on all the various divisions and branches, pick out 3 or 4 which look most appealing to you, then come back here and ask specific qns abt those specific places :)

Bad performance grades, and make them step down or demote them back to GEO.

That's the way it is in the private sector.

You apply for a managerial role in another company. If you are not up to task, will be shown the door. Why keep them for so long?

Iron rice bowl just means not easy to fire someone. Nothing about demoting someone

There are plenty of people who switch between individual contributor roles and manager roles. Life is not linear, so is one's career.

Pb is once off.

Salary is forever.

yup, perf grade fluctuates. Not every panel is going to guarantee your A/B grade every year as a GEO4/5 KP. Some will 'spread the wealth over the years'. PB, just like the mid year and year end variable payments, fluctuate. You can't do financial planning based on that even though your total comp in a 'good' year may be stupid high.

At SEO1, it is not terribly difficult to hit C grade every year if you are responsible and meticulous, and know how to work smart. Forget the As and Bs, your base salary is already higher. The As and Bs come unexpectedly and should just be treated as occasional nice surprises.

With such a system, no one will dare to promote people to SEO1. Speaks poorly of SSC if someone has to be demoted back. Cluster Sup confirm question.

Lol u really think that private sector is like that ahh. Did u miss news's about how there were Facebook employees who were recently laid off but had been doing literally nothing for years? The private sector is worse in terms of getting fat with middle managers who add little value as long.

If the public sector had something like that, society would make a big fuss about wasting public funds.

Skillset-wise, having a big-picture view and ability to do systemic long-term planning would probably be what HQ stints are most likely to develop. That's probably why postings in divisions such as Higher Ed are considered good development opportunities, despite having little relevance to general education.

If you're concerned about school-relevant skills, looking for opportunities within divisions such as SDCD and CPDD could help deepen your subject knowledge.

I am a GEO5 here, male, working for over 6 years since NIE, currently drawing around 7.4k base. Life is good. Can retire.

Yup, overall it was a positive experience, as it was a good 3-year break from teaching. I don't wanna reveal my division, but what I did at HQ was pretty different from school stuff. Despite this, I don't feel handicapped as a classroom teacher per se, because as a SH now, I'm judged by my sch-wide and lvl-wide impact. I think I brought value to my current sch in terms of my critical thinking and communication with various depts as well as SLs. Not to diss KPs who rose up through sch, but they tend to be more skillful in action management rather than visioning, aligning and communication - core skills that I picked up at HQ. I'm also lucky cos my SLs value my experiences and skills as an ex-HQ officer.

If you're a SH now, you can easily be a HOD after your HQ stint (if career progression is what you value).

thats very fast...are u mid-career or a scholar?

If an officer applied for transfer to other places this year but failed, will the SLs and KPs (who were informed by the officer) give the officer a poorer grade than usual?

Like downgrading a B grade to C+ or from a C+ to C?

Any honest experiences with this situation?

obviously a troll. possibly cannot map out the salary over the 6 years.

Really appreciate to all who shared their HQ experiences and it really strengthen my resolve to apply for HQ posting next year as I would really like to challenge myself to get out of my comfort zone. Really excited about being able to try my hands on visioning and planning which like you rightly pointed out are not exactly evident when in schools.

It would be good fun! I enjoyed my time in HQ very much even though it was very challenging. Wanted to point out that strategic work exists in HQ, but it is also present in school to some degree. Further, though a lot of HQ work pieces are strategic and require long-term perspective, there are also not-so-exciting pieces of work in HQ which must still be done well - like being the secretariat for meetings, managing media queries, or managing emails late into the evening. Just wanted to paint an accurate picture.

Enter with an open mind and a humbled heart and you'll gain much!

thank u!! I am mid-career, worked for 1.5+ years in research~

Assuming you are a local uni grad with BSc, male:

2 years in previous field
1 year in contract untrained phase
1 year in PGDE phase
6 years in full time teaching phase

It should have been 10-11 years since you graduated. I guess the salary figure kind of fits. It's still pretty fast though. Many people I know in your age group are still way below yours. Did you often get consecutively above average performance grades within those 6 years?

2 years, MX12. Just a farmer.

My guess is that teachers got a lower adjustment compared with the MX scheme last year.

Unless we have the full details (sub grade, year-in-service, education background, prior work exp) of you and your teacher friend, we can't really make a fair or informed comparison!

EO salary scales are higher than MX. My NUS uni batchmates who have gone to other ministries have lower salaries than EOs.

Possible to share your progression and perf grades over the years? Also your educational background?