Teaching in Singapore is doomed. parents are the norms – and the school leadership and ministry are just turning a blind eye towards this.

I was a teacher, like many of my friends who left the force in the recent years – many of which are TA and TS – bright and passionate individuals who received scholarships to study to pursue teaching as a career.

After 10 years of teaching, my salary is 7k at GEO5, due for a promotion to SEO1 within 1-2 years. Might seem like a lot to you, but the hours I am required to put in is far more when compared to other roles. I spent 7am to 6pm in school on most days – busy with constant meetings, parent engagement, remedial, CCAs and settling various student matters. After which I go home, take an early rest at 9pm and wake up at 1-2am to continue marking, lesson prep and other misc stuff till 6am before I leave for school On the weekends, I typically spend another 10hours on work as well – that makes my work week approximately 90hours. This effectively makes it such that I’m working more than double what most salaried workers and friends I know who typically work in a week – making my salary 50% less if you factor the hours worked. The only people who work anywhere close to me are doctors and lawyers, who are getting double my salary.

We are also bogged down by constant harassment from overbearing parents. By and large, 90% of parents are okay to handle, it’s the 10% who demand 90% of your time and it’s not fair to you or your other students. It doesn’t help that the school management keeps turning a blind eye and try to appease them, always saying that we should work hand in hand. But the abuse can get very bad and teachers are generally afraid to report it upwards as many are afraid it might affect their KPI. Why can’t MOE take a harsher stance on this and don’t allow verbal and emotional abuse of teachers such as the MOH with nurses?

The best part about this is MOE now believes that the workload of teachers are now manageable and are encouraging us to think of how to develop students more holistically. I think my heart issues will develop more with the 4-5hours of sleep I get daily. The top brass is so detached from the ground that this is laughable. The main force of teachers in schools now are those 45 and upwards – how they survived is a combination of factors – from not having another viable career after teaching to just doing the minimal for students.

I plea for MOE to relook on these matters, lest we lose the brightest of the next generation of teachers. Many who left entered the force with drive and determination, only to leave when the passion has burnt out and all the remains are ashes of their dreams. How can MOE say that they recruit the best to teach, when all those still staying either have no choice or have already quite quit.

The grass is always greener on the other side – and for me and my fellow colleagues/friends who left (more than 10 of us) – it’s way greener than the green of MOE’s education.

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