Career as Teacher

The thing is, everyone is aware of the strange phenomena you guys stated above. Heck, even HQ and HR are aware of:

Slow promotions and progression
Manpower shortage (even for STEM teachers)
Too many GEO5 and SEO dead weights

The more important thing is...Do you guys see them doing anything effective about it?

We all just see a vicious cycle of resignations among the GEO3 and GEO4, which kinda breeds KPIs for HR to produce some minimal recruitment numbers. Not sure if this is really healthy for the system in the long term though.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Will be interesting to find out the % of teachers in each school that are already quiet quitters, one way or another.

"Quiet Quitting" is a term invented by employers to gaslight employees into thinking they are not doing enough when they are already doing what they are supposed to, just not going the extra miles, or do more with the same pay, which is exactly what is happening in MOE now. More and more F/CAJTs, who cover the other non-teaching duties? Makes you wonder why some teachers in service lack pedagogy or content, cause those who can rather go private sector and do what they do best

Originally Posted by Unregistered

"Quiet Quitting" is a term invented by employers to gaslight employees into thinking they are not doing enough when they are already doing what they are supposed to, just not going the extra miles, or do more with the same pay, which is exactly what is happening in MOE now. More and more F/CAJTs, who cover the other non-teaching duties? Makes you wonder why some teachers in service lack pedagogy or content, cause those who can rather go private sector and do what they do best

FAJTs are practically a necessity if perm EOs want to go on long leave, like PD leave, TWA+, maternity/paternity leave, etc. There is so little buffer capacity in the permanent establishment now that if one or two teachers in a department are away, the rest of their colleagues suffer an unsustainable, crushing workload. "Lean" is the new corporate flex, but is no more than just fancy packaged exploitation of workers.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

FAJTs are practically a necessity if perm EOs want to go on long leave, like PD leave, TWA+, maternity/paternity leave, etc. There is so little buffer capacity in the permanent establishment now that if one or two teachers in a department are away, the rest of their colleagues suffer an unsustainable, crushing workload. "Lean" is the new corporate flex, but is no more than just fancy packaged exploitation of workers.

Gov will blame you and your parents for not making enough babies thats why the workforce shrinking.

Ironic right? With work hours like this how to even go paktor

vicious cycles everywhere

Hi all, is it hard to clear interview for PGS? And does PGS awardees have better career prospects? Thanks in advance!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

The thing is, everyone is aware of the strange phenomena you guys stated above. Heck, even HQ and HR are aware of:

Slow promotions and progression
Manpower shortage (even for STEM teachers)
Too many GEO5 and SEO dead weights

The more important thing is...Do you guys see them doing anything effective about it?

We all just see a vicious cycle of resignations among the GEO3 and GEO4, which kinda breeds KPIs for HR to produce some minimal recruitment numbers. Not sure if this is really healthy for the system in the long term though.

Think the term deadweight is used wrongly.

Deadweight is someone who underperforms, not meeting the minimum job requirements, but still somehow kept on the team.

Someone who does what is specified in the job description, they are pulling their own weight.

It is ridiculous to expect everyone to perform above and beyond their paygrade, and unreasonable to expect everyone to perform at managerial level for free.

GEO5s at the end of the day, are still ordinary teachers. It is not their responsibility to do any kind of management related roles (if so, then there's no need to differentiate between GEO and SEO alr).

Strangely, SEOs who are not taking KP roles are asked to step down and revert to GEO5, yet the reverse is not true. GEOs taking KP roles are not stepped up to their rightful SEO paygrade.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

FAJTs are practically a necessity if perm EOs want to go on long leave, like PD leave, TWA+, maternity/paternity leave, etc. There is so little buffer capacity in the permanent establishment now that if one or two teachers in a department are away, the rest of their colleagues suffer an unsustainable, crushing workload. "Lean" is the new corporate flex, but is no more than just fancy packaged exploitation of workers.

The current trend is that more perm EOs are converting to FAJTs by resigning. These FAJTs are not just in a school for a short one or two weeks but could be months or even years. Then these FAJTs are replaced by new FAJTs. No increase in headcount, so the remaining EOs pick up the slack of non-teaching duties to the point of absurdity; even teaching loads are increased due to larger class sizes with more diverse profiles of students in the name of inclusivity. These are just the tip of the iceberg of the problems in MOE's schools faced by normal teachers. Perhaps if Ps and VPs can share the problems, then there will be real Work-Life Balance. However, if recent events are any indication, ministers can afford to rent B&W bungalows while citizens live in HDB of smaller sizes.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It is ridiculous to expect everyone to perform above and beyond their paygrade, and unreasonable to expect everyone to perform at managerial level for free.

GEOs taking KP roles are not stepped up to their rightful SEO paygrade.

I’ve been following these arguments with some interest. My initial response was, yes of course! Officers who take on management roles should be promoted to the corresponding subgrade! If not immediately, then within 1-2 years at latest!

In practice, reflecting on my own path, I wonder if that would necessarily make that big a difference - especially if under such a scheme, officers are pegged near the bottom of the pay scale. We should keep in mind that the different subgrades have overlapping pay scales.

I was only promoted to SEO1 eight years after taking on an SH role. This all happened sometime ago (back when payslips were emailed, which allowed me to check back more easily haha) so certain things like GEO4 requirement weren’t in place yet. For simplicity, I’ve reported subgrades using the new terminology, and used Apr salary (post increment) for reference.

My KP journey
Y1: GEO3 5.1k
Y2: GEO4 5.6k
Y3: GEO4 5.8k
Y4: GEO5 6.3k
Y5: GEO5 6.7k
Y6: GEO5 6.9k
Y7: GEO5 7.2k
Y8: SEO1 7.4k

Given that the SEO1 range was just 5651-9064 at the time… I'd actually already entered the SEO1 range in my second/third year as KP. Having a lower subgrade probably also allowed me to score higher increments easily as I wasn't ranked against other KP.

So… even though I'd of course have preferred receiving an instant pay raise to my Y8 salary point, I don't think I lost out terribly under the current system… Is there perhaps too much attention on the subgrade label, when it's the actual take-home that should matter (from a financial perspective), at the end of the day? As long as you're not hitting the cap yet, what's the rush?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I’ve been following these arguments with some interest. My initial response was, yes of course! Officers who take on management roles should be promoted to the corresponding subgrade! If not immediately, then within 1-2 years at latest!

In practice, reflecting on my own path, I wonder if that would necessarily make that big a difference - especially if under such a scheme, officers are pegged near the bottom of the pay scale. We should keep in mind that the different subgrades have overlapping pay scales.

I was only promoted to SEO1 eight years after taking on an SH role. This all happened sometime ago (back when payslips were emailed, which allowed me to check back more easily haha) so certain things like GEO4 requirement weren’t in place yet. For simplicity, I’ve reported subgrades using the new terminology, and used Apr salary (post increment) for reference.

My KP journey
Y1: GEO3 5.1k
Y2: GEO4 5.6k
Y3: GEO4 5.8k
Y4: GEO5 6.3k
Y5: GEO5 6.7k
Y6: GEO5 6.9k
Y7: GEO5 7.2k
Y8: SEO1 7.4k

Given that the SEO1 range was just 5651-9064 at the time… I'd actually already entered the SEO1 range in my second/third year as KP. Having a lower subgrade probably also allowed me to score higher increments easily as I wasn't ranked against other KP.

So… even though I'd of course have preferred receiving an instant pay raise to my Y8 salary point, I don't think I lost out terribly under the current system… Is there perhaps too much attention on the subgrade label, when it's the actual take-home that should matter (from a financial perspective), at the end of the day? As long as you're not hitting the cap yet, what's the rush?

I think we could all agree we are all in awe with your salary progression.

7.4k for 8 YOE is like a godsend... people I know around that same years of service are at best mid 6k+