Precisely. It is just your friend who is unable to utilize his time properly. poor time management dude.

From the many years that I know him as classmate, I don't think he is. He told me afternoons are usually occupied with endless meetings with his bosses and peers, if not with students or parents. He's not stupid either, 1st Cass Honours (BEng) working as an engineering manager in US MNC before he joins teaching.

Well I am outsider, wouldn't want to comment further. There are many information available and talk to ex-teachers, they will not hide because they already resigned.

://sgforums.com/forums/3317/topics/399609

Anyone else care to chime in on this topic?

It honestly depends on the person. Firstly, you have to remove this idea that teaching is somehow a 'career'. It is not. Teaching is a passion. There is no reward, you do this because you WANT to, there should be no other reason. Those who burn out usually have different expectations, they want to teach because they want some material reward, it doesnt work like that. Teaching is the reward in itself. If you dont find that appealing, then dont try at all. If you want to be rewarded, dont join MOE, there are many private tuition centers that pay good money.

Secondly, teaching is difficult. You may get dumped into a lousy school where you may have to deal with divorced parents, children from poor homes, most of the time, you will be doing some sort of damage control instead of teaching. If this is not what you want, you can try aiming for JC level teaching. However, from what I know, only those with good academic credentials, ie FCH or second upper, are allowed to teach in JC. Not only that, your degree has to be related. If not, you will start from secondary school and work your way up.

At the end of the day, try not to break your bond. If you really cannot tahan, get some pills. Work your way until you finish your bond. I've met alot of teachers that break their bond. Its a bloody stupid move. But in such high stress situations, not many people can think straight.

Ite or Moe
 

I am an ex MOE teacher thinking of returning to teaching.Recently I was offered a lecturing job at ITE.However,I am contemplating of taking up flexi-adjunct teaching instead of the lecturer job.If you were me,which would you choose?In a dilemma right now......

The issue with being an adjunct lecturer is that the total pay is much lower even though the hourly rate seems high. You will also be at the mercy of the timetable planner - the worst possibility is to work 5 days a week with semi-long breaks between classes on each day.

Yes I definitely agree with the writer. It's a passion, nothing else. Teaching is only 40% of the job, the rest is events organizer that starts with meetings and meetings, "damage control" like what the writer mentioned, dealing with unreasonable parents, etc. If you are going after money, it's the wrong place, especially if you are young and ambitious. Somehow and for some reasons, there are more children with family problems these days, may be due to our high stress society? This is even evident in the elite schools where some students are very bright and scored high in PSLE, got admitted but they cannot perform when they are in secondary schools due to parents divorce, fight, debt problems, etc. This was shared by someone I know. So teachers have to come in to solve the problem....to ensure those bright kids do well in schools and don't fall through the cracks.

i'm young but not ambitious in the corporate sense. i enjoy teaching (or at least think I would based on cca and experience giving tuition). but i'm worried about burning weekends/holidays and bringing work home and working till late. occasionally is fine, but if it's a standard occurrence then I'd think twice.

If you are an experienced MOE teacher before, you will likely find the pay offered by ITE below your last drawn salary.

ITE generally pays 3-4k for lecturer (those with <10 yrs relevant exp) and 4-5k for senior lecturer (those above 10 yrs relevant exp). However the food thing with teaching in ITE compared to normal MOE school teacher is workload is less stressful, working hours OK dun really need to bring work home and very little need to customer service with pesky parents.

Also the type of people who teach at ITE vs secondary/JC/poly is quite different, you must be able to get along with your colleagues otherwise work life can be quite miserable.

My advise is you have to ask yourself if you are prepared to make sacrifices for something that you believed in. If you go in with the correct mindset and mentally ready to adjust your lifestyle for a cause that you are passionate about, you will be fine. Otherwise life may be miserable and add one more headcount to those who break bond or resign immediately after serving the bond. There are some in every batch of fresh NIE graduates. I have seen 2 in 3 resigned from one batch once. Those who resign will lament that they "lost" 4 good years of working experience because teachers' experience are in general not considered for "additional" starting pay in the private sector.