Debated in Parliament on 11 Nov 2013.
Ms Tan Su Shan asked the Minister for Education whether the Ministry will consider creating a rotational system for experienced teachers that is similar to the existing scheme to rotate principals to further de-emphasise the labelling of some schools as "top schools".
Mdm Speaker, when deploying teachers to schools, MOE seeks to achieve a good mix of new and experienced teachers with the right subject specialisations that best meet the needs of students in our schools.
In all our schools, we enable our teachers to contribute their best for our students, regardless of their years of experience. New teachers in schools are mentored by Senior Teachers, Heads of Department (HODs) and school leaders in their initial years. Schools also have Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) where teachers come together regularly to share and learn from one another. Teachers also receive continual training at the Academy of Singapore Teachers (AST), which was set up, together with the other teacher academies, to spearhead the professional development of teachers and enhance the quality of the teaching force.
Mdm Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister this: the MOE Paper on Principal Rotation states that the process of systematically appointing and rotating principals enables experienced principals to share best practices in support of "Every School a Good School". Would that principle, therefore, apply to teachers as well?
Mdm Speaker, we do rotate our teachers for the same reason. Rotating teachers across schools is one way for experiences and ideas to be shared. That is one of the ways. The other very important way is for our teachers to come together to share in their professional community their experience and their ideas. Indeed, there are many such forums for doing so. For instance, we have a MOE ExCel Festival where innovations within schools are shared across schools. We also have teachers coming together at the cluster level to share ideas and experiences. There are many different ways in which experiences can be shared, including rotation of teachers across schools.
Mdm Speaker, I have a question with regard to the deployment of top-performing teachers within MOE. The teachers who are graded highly or promoted, for example, over the course of
Page: 42
their career, do they get posted to different schools so that they also share their experience and expertise amongst other teachers and other schools and students?
MOE operates a centralised system of posting of our teachers. Very often, when teachers are promoted, they are moved also to other schools, for example, as Subject Heads or Heads of Department. This is one reason why we have been able to deploy a range of teachers across different areas, including different subject areas.
Thank you, Mdm Speaker. Just a quick supplementary question for the Minister. I understand that independent schools, for example, can make their own hiring and firing decisions. I would like to know, for the rest of the schools, what sort of decisions can the principals make in terms of the selection of the teachers.
For posting of teachers, we have two systems. One is what is known as open posting, and one is closed posting. In the case of open postings, teachers can apply for posting to another school, in which case, the principal of the school and the school leaders may interview the teachers and, if there is a mutual agreement, MOE will post these teachers to another school. MOE also has to take into account the needs of different schools, so we also operate a system where MOE HQ will decide on the postings. Principals do have a say in the posting of these teachers.
PAPERCUTS