Career as Teacher

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Got PSC/OMS scholars who promote every 2 years like clockwork.

2 years as BT, 2 years as AD in SM/HQ, 2 years as HOD in school, 2 year as VP. After 8 years become P, become some of the youngest P by 30s.

Quite ridiculous how someone with 4 years of teaching (2 years of BT-ship and 2 years as offloaded HOD) can run a school.

And all these are determined by A level results and the scholarship panel interview at 18 years old.

But what’s wrong of these people reaping the fruits of their hard work / efforts in their early days? Stop being jealous of these people. They worked hard to gain the scholarship and why is it unfair for them to climb up the ranks at a faster rate if they have shown results.

Hi, I am currently doing PGDE at NIE. Can I confirm that the results and classification of PGDE does not affect your salary/CEP/career progression? i.e., just need to pass PGDE can already?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi, I am currently doing PGDE at NIE. Can I confirm that the results and classification of PGDE does not affect your salary/CEP/career progression? i.e., just need to pass PGDE can already?

If you get distinction, you will definitely get more opportunities.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If you get distinction, you will definitely get more opportunities.

apart from potentially getting more opportunities in school to prove yourself, will PGDE grades and classification affect your salary/CEP?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Demand for tuition is partly due to the fact that not all students learn well in a 1:40 teacher to student ratio. The last time I was able to do 1-to-1 or even small group consults was as a BT. This was the ultimate type of differentiated instruction and it made a tremendous impact on the students that I had time for. Unfortunately once full loaded, that's it, impossible. Private tuition is the replacement for such consult. Realistically speaking, school teachers can't do it for every student, or even half of their students.

Half? Very optimistic.

Full load 200 students, can squeeze out time to meet students after school for 2-3h is a luxury. At most maybe around 5 kids or 5 groups of students.

1/20

Originally Posted by Unregistered

But what’s wrong of these people reaping the fruits of their hard work / efforts in their early days? Stop being jealous of these people. They worked hard to gain the scholarship and why is it unfair for them to climb up the ranks at a faster rate if they have shown results.

Some people are late bloomers.
Some early bloomers might not stay 'blooming' later in life.

MOE is not a service that is short of FCH holders from prestigious universities.

To say that they deserve accelerated progression as a reward for doing well in an exam, is laughable.

Among the many tiers of scholars, which scholar didn't do well for A levels?

Which FCH holder didn't work hard for their degree?

Despite all if them scoring straight As, the PSC scholar is better than the EMS scholars, who are in turn better than the teaching scholars?

For someone to be promoted every 2 years while others are taking 3-5years (or even longer), is it really because they are twice as capable as their peers?

Someone who didn't had a scholarship, or had a lower tier scholarship, they are forever in the less-competent bin of people regardless of how well they worked?

SLs are ultimately people developers too. If they cannot 'develop' a scholar well, it also reflects badly on them in their work review. Very hard for them to justify why scholars posted to them are not developed to meet HQ's expectations.

And since scholars usually stay for 2-3 years, it is easier to just give them good performance grades and have them move on to the next posting.

For those who have been in the service for a while, we have definitely seen incompetent people leaving behind a mess for others to clean up, and still getting promoted despite the mess they created.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

apart from potentially getting more opportunities in school to prove yourself, will PGDE grades and classification affect your salary/CEP?

Will not affect salary, as salary is based on your degree.

For CEP, might make a difference if you are the valedictorian of your PGDE cohort

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Some people are late bloomers.
Some early bloomers might not stay 'blooming' later in life.

MOE is not a service that is short of FCH holders from prestigious universities.

To say that they deserve accelerated progression as a reward for doing well in an exam, is laughable.

Among the many tiers of scholars, which scholar didn't do well for A levels?

Which FCH holder didn't work hard for their degree?

Despite all if them scoring straight As, the PSC scholar is better than the EMS scholars, who are in turn better than the teaching scholars?

For someone to be promoted every 2 years while others are taking 3-5years (or even longer), is it really because they are twice as capable as their peers?

Someone who didn't had a scholarship, or had a lower tier scholarship, they are forever in the less-competent bin of people regardless of how well they worked?

SLs are ultimately people developers too. If they cannot 'develop' a scholar well, it also reflects badly on them in their work review. Very hard for them to justify why scholars posted to them are not developed to meet HQ's expectations.

And since scholars usually stay for 2-3 years, it is easier to just give them good performance grades and have them move on to the next posting.

For those who have been in the service for a while, we have definitely seen incompetent people leaving behind a mess for others to clean up, and still getting promoted despite the mess they created.

I second this.
Some maybe never go take up scholarship (use Parent’s scholarship lor) and then their paths become defined, even if they could be performing as good as higher tier scholars?

This system is ********.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I second this.
Some maybe never go take up scholarship (use Parent’s scholarship lor) and then their paths become defined, even if they could be performing as good as higher tier scholars?

This system is ********.

But you cannot deduct those scholars’ effort and hard work during their earlier years. They did well not just academically but also in their CCAs and performed exceptionally during the interviews so that they get the prestigious scholarships. Why do some get PSC and some only EMS? It’s because those PSC scholars prepared hard and stood out in front of the panel. We should not cancel their efforts. Anw, if they end up not performing, they will also end up getting stuck in their career. But it’s not wrong that they are given more opportunities for the hard work that they put in in their earlier days.

The rest of the late bloomers, if they bloom, people will also notice them and they can also grab opportunities to showcase their talents if they want.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

All the talk about scholar vs non-scholars made me realise that some are rally disillusioned. I am a farmer, consistent A and B since the day I joined the school more than a decade ago, and I can safely tell you that paths of scholars are mapped out, and because of that, perf grades and cep are also ingeniously crafted to ensure that they are accelerated on their path to take on SLship or high leadership roles in HQ. They do not even need to assume the role of hod to move up to VP, simply appearing and disappearing between schools and HQ and somehow they are magically transformed into one ready for higher appointments.

While I consistently performed well in school and have tried out every single possible roles that brought about school/cluster/national impact, promotion came much slower. Cep… ultimately still basing it on paper qualification. Discussion about SLship was met with smokescreen, since many SLs themselves do not have good capabilities to develop people. A number of my friends (hod from different schools) face similar predicament. Career hod…what can we do?

I agree with you about the scholars. Many people here say that "oh during ranking KPs will be fair", but that's not always the same across all schools.

However, your batch was already quite lucky to have made it to HOD levels. If you look at the younger officers, their chances are now even slimmer, especially for non scholars. In fact, it's hard to even get CONSISTENT A and B grades for non scholars.