Career as Teacher

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Because the toxic work culture in MOE is built upon a warped appraisal system.

If you ask officers from other ministries, their appraisal is mainly based on their core work. For example, economists mainly spend their time on analyzing economic trends, engineers mainly focus on technical operations, policy planners focusing on planning work. Maybe contribute a bit in committee work, like organising annual staff dinner or departmental outings.

Otherwise got professional officers to handle corporate roles.

Meanwhile school officers wear too many additional hats, to the point that emphasis in teaching is outshone.

Epms becomes a list of what additional stuff an officer has done.

Double hatting as:
procurement officers (handles sourcing, AORS, quotes, raising gebiz, evaluate tenders, awarding tenders)
Coach (certain sports and clubs, the teachers are the main instructors)
Counsellor to student (teacher counsellor)
Counsellor to colleagues (wellness ambassador)
Communications (need to produce school publications, manage school websites, handle school social media accounts)
Researchers (need to plan and conduct education research)
AV support (need to do AV duties for small events such as school meetings, to large events such as school celebrations)
Tech support (administrator to perform reset of various student accounts)
Secondment (arrowed to do seab exam duty, eld election duty)
First aider (expected to deliver first aid in event of emergency)

No such nonsense in other govt roles.

Manpower is sufficient if teachers are expected to focus mainly on teaching and appraised accordingly.

Manpower will always be insufficient if teachers are piled on more and more non-core work, work that makes the school and SLs look good, at the expense of officers' health and family time.

Yup I've experienced every item on this list (except first-aider). But besides these additional responsibilities, the core work of teaching has grown significantly more challenging for teachers in recent years. A teacher simply cannot just walk into class, crank open last year's materials and lecture away for an hour. Much time and effort goes into preparing lessons which suit the class profile - the lesson that gets one class all fired up and engaged may fall flat in another class in the same level and stream (encountered this firsthand).

With Full SBB, the level of skill demanded of teachers has ratcheted up further. You now have in EVERY class students of mixed abilities and learning preferences, and teachers must now be able to differentiate teaching instruction to these mixed groups for every lesson. I believe it's good for the students, but it takes a lot out of the teacher.

And then, add on all those other duties...

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Not the original poster but anecdotally, I've done 3 elections and each time, three quarters or more of my polling station would be staffed by teachers.

General election and presidential election are once every 5 years. Even if you are worked to the bone on that day, surely you wouldn't leave/resign/whine just because of that?
I understand why teachers want to resign (from the posts on this thread) and they are certainly valid but surely electoral duties once every few years can't be one of them?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

General election and presidential election are once every 5 years. Even if you are worked to the bone on that day, surely you wouldn't leave/resign/whine just because of that?
I understand why teachers want to resign (from the posts on this thread) and they are certainly valid but surely electoral duties once every few years can't be one of them?

There are training courses to attend during non-election periods. And guess what, training sessions are often scheduled during school holidays.

No OIL given, no compensation for loss of protected time. No training allowance also

And this is just some of the compulsory secondments that teachers are forced to do.

For exam duty, seab could have hired their own examiners, invigilators, markers. Plenty of ex-teachers and retirees who are capable of performing the task.
And they do offer such positions on careers@gov. Don't know why still need to draft teachers for meaningless duties, especially for roles such as oral exam timekeeper.
The poor AOE don't even have a stopwatch, and job of timekeeping is fully done by the computer system. The AOE also don't know what is going on at the candidate's end. Don't even know why the AOE is still needed this day and age.

Worst of all, seab duties were classified as self-employment and we were all dumped into the cpf board Contribute-as-you-earn scheme for real self-employed people. And we had to declare exam duty allowances ourselves (which come in piecemeal payments) during tax filing. Nevermind that seab is an organisation under purview of MOE. Nevermind that under employment laws, self-employed workers/contractors have to agree to work, and there should be a signed employment contract between employer and freelancers. So many violations of the law!

During covid, because of poor and unsustainable policies exempting students from carrying trace together tokens, instead of contact tracing carried out by fulltime contact tracers at tracing centres, poor teachers had to spend hours doing contact tracing. More time wasted.

The list is endless. The point is that there are too many non-teaching work eating into officers' time for actual teaching work.

not a poster from any of the previous posts...but non-teachers reading those posts will have a better idea of the small details that really interfere with the core duties of teachers

but many will just comment "not happy just quit"

which is pretty much the situation right now...a downward spiral of unhappy resignations...FAJTs getting damn packed work schedules too lol

the root cause is always about $$$. as long as not enough money and effort is invested in a particular industry, no matter how much is sugar coated or swept under the carpet, things will still rot from the inside

Originally Posted by Unregistered

With Full SBB, the level of skill demanded of teachers has ratcheted up further. You now have in EVERY class students of mixed abilities and learning preferences, and teachers must now be able to differentiate teaching instruction to these mixed groups for every lesson. I believe it's good for the students, but it takes a lot out of the teacher.

Interesting, I thought FSBB means the subject teaching itself, it is still grouped together as similar ability, as in all G1, or G2 or G3?

Why the push for differentiation?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

not a poster from any of the previous posts...but non-teachers reading those posts will have a better idea of the small details that really interfere with the core duties of teachers

but many will just comment "not happy just quit"

which is pretty much the situation right now...a downward spiral of unhappy resignations...FAJTs getting damn packed work schedules too lol

the root cause is always about $$$. as long as not enough money and effort is invested in a particular industry, no matter how much is sugar coated or swept under the carpet, things will still rot from the inside

ppl might argue that MOE teachers are paid decent-ish (full annual comps with all bonuses considered). sure, of course there are other professions out there with awful working hours, high stress and terrible wlb and yet paid less than MOE teachers. examples include big 4 auditors. Here, we draw 100k or more (full comps with bonuses) after 5-6 yrs of working which is pretty impressive all things considered (don't compare with tech, high finance, etc)

Originally Posted by Unregistered

ppl might argue that MOE teachers are paid decent-ish (full annual comps with all bonuses considered). sure, of course there are other professions out there with awful working hours, high stress and terrible wlb and yet paid less than MOE teachers. examples include big 4 auditors. Here, we draw 100k or more (full comps with bonuses) after 5-6 yrs of working which is pretty impressive all things considered (don't compare with tech, high finance, etc)

Don't know how you get 100k after 5 years, unless you count the connect plan payout year only.

5YOE draws around 5.5k pay. Multiply by 15.5 months, is only $85k package.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Interesting, I thought FSBB means the subject teaching itself, it is still grouped together as similar ability, as in all G1, or G2 or G3?

Why the push for differentiation?

Even without SBB, students already differ in ability. In express classes, although everyone is an express student, there are those who are failing, those who are barely passing, those who perform averagely, and those who are constantly scoring distinctions and full marks.

The bar for G3 eligibility is quite low. Students might score enough to be offered the subject, but that doesn't mean they will do well compared to the mainstream group of students.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Even without SBB, students already differ in ability. In express classes, although everyone is an express student, there are those who are failing, those who are barely passing, those who perform averagely, and those who are constantly scoring distinctions and full marks.

The bar for G3 eligibility is quite low. Students might score enough to be offered the subject, but that doesn't mean they will do well compared to the mainstream group of students.

That means FSBB should not change the amount of differentiation required.

If prior to FSBB, students already differ in ability in the same class, how will FSBB increases that differentiation?

Can P/VP/VP(A) or General Office staff WFH during teaching weeks?