Improving Well-being-related Resources for Special Education Teachers

Mr Speaker, Sir, many of us know that the work of our special education (SPED) teachers is emotionally and physically taxing, and we are thankful for their strong commitment. The Ministry of Education (MOE) works closely with the social service agencies (SSAs) running SPED schools to support our teachers' well-being.

In the immediate term, SPED schools will implement the Journeys of Excellence Package. This package was developed by MOE in collaboration with SPED schools and includes funding support for competitive salaries and professional development support to enhance the professionalism of teachers. SPED schools will also appoint a school staff developer to look after the learning needs of our teachers. This package will strengthen the hiring and retention of teachers to help address the high workload in our SPED schools.

SPED schools are also implementing measures to further improve teachers' workload and well-being. Parents are reminded to respect teachers' personal time outside of working hours. During the school holidays, teaching staff are given protected time to recharge. Teachers can also reach out to their school leaders directly for support, including to raise concerns or seek advice.

More importantly, in the medium to longer term, MOE is working with the SSAs and SPED schools on the following efforts, as they may be more effective at the sector level, rather than the individual school level.

First, MOE will work with SSAs and SPED schools to deepen the professional capabilities in our SPED teachers and leaders with deep knowledge and practice in curriculum and some specialisation in the various disability profiles. To be effective, this will be done collectively across the SSAs and SPED schools, rather than each school developing its expertise on its own. This is also a more systematic approach to support the professional development of our SPED teachers and leaders. I look forward to the various SPED schools, serving the same segment of special needs, coming together to lead these Communities of Practice and share their best practices.

Second, SPED educators have told me that it is not easy to take time off work to go for training and professional development. MOE will work with our SPED Schools and SSAs to jointly develop a pool of relief teachers who can step in when needed, so that SPED teachers can go for training and be supported when they need to be away for other reasons such as medical or urgent leave.

Third, to strengthen their manpower resourcing, MOE will explore working with SPED schools to do joint marketing as a sector to better recruit teachers and improve their human resource management and processes. I look forward to working with our SSAs and SPED schools to make the career of our SPED teachers as respected, as professionally enriching and as personally satisfying as being a mainstream teacher. Where SPED teachers and leaders can have the confidence that their progression and development will parallel that of our mainstream teachers as a system at the sector level, rather than just within a SPED school.

Fourth, MOE is also in discussions with SPED schools and SSAs on how we can provide mainstream and SPED teachers with the opportunities to learn from each other, either through attachments or possibly even rotations, so as to appreciate other student profiles and contexts. This is similar to the current arrangement where we have teachers from MOE schools seconded to SPED schools.

Fifth, MOE will work with the SSAs to see how we can better achieve economies of scale in administration and infrastructure support, without losing the nimbleness required to cater to the unique needs for the respective SPED schools.

Just as in the mainstream education sector, teachers are key in the SPED sector. We must continue to take care of our SPED teachers and strengthen the professional capabilities in SPED so that SPED students can grow up to be active in the community or the workplace and valued by society. Achieving this will require the collective effort of the SSAs and SPED schools, which MOE is committed to support.

The key to managing the workload must be our ability to grow and work together, not just on the quantity of our SPED teachers, but also the quality of our SPED teachers, beyond the respective SPED school level. I am glad to share that we have gotten in-principle support from our SPED school community to work towards these collective goals as a sector.

Thank you to the Minister for sharing on how we can upgrade the SPED fraternity. Just two supplementary questions. Firstly, many of our SPED teachers are exposed to a lot of risks, including physical risks. How is MOE stepping to mitigate that? Secondly, is MOE already working with mental health, trained professionals to better look after the mental well-being and stress burnout of our SPED educators?

Mr Speaker, Sir, let me address the two supplementary questions from Mr Patrick Tay. On the second issue, yes, MOE is making available and expanding our resources available to all our teachers from both mainstream and SPED schools to see how we can better help them manage their mental health, because only with well-balanced happy teachers, will we have well-balanced and happy students.

On the first issue, yes, we acknowledge that for some of the SPED schools, the physical risks to our teachers can be much higher than the rest. And we will have to tackle these issues in various ways. First, it will be the kind of teaching support that we give to our teachers. Second, it is the kind of training that we give to our teachers and the Allied Professionals. And third, it is the kind of infrastructure design that we have in order to allow our teachers to have the comfort and the peace of mind that should something happen, there are ways that we can support them. This can range from rooms for the child who is having a meltdown to calm down, to places whereby our teachers can also have a respite from their duties, taking care of the special needs children, who are also very high-needs children.

I need to declare that I am a volunteer helping two special schools. It is true that burnout, physical risks are quite common amongst the SPED schools. And, in fact, a number of the staff are female; so, where physical risk is involved, they are, indeed, at risk. So, we need to make sure that we protect them.

My second point is, the Journeys of Excellence Package that was mentioned by the Minister, covers mostly SPED teachers. But within the SPED schools setting, there are speech pathologists, occupational therapists, coaches and psychologists. Many of them work in the exact same setting. In fact, they handle even higher risk or more challenging cases. So, we must include them in whatever we come up with, in terms of the excellence for SPED schools.

My third point is also with the increase in parental leave, maternity leave and so forth, which we must support at the national level, we have also increased the workload of many of the SPED staff, because it is not easy to just create or develop a relief pool who can just move into the class and replace the usual staff. So, there are issues which are of concern in the SPED school setting.

I know it is important and I thank the Minister for saying that you have formed a group to look into these, but can this group who looks into these issues include the other non-teachers, the other staff as well. And also, look at the best in the world, best in class resources and hear from the staff themselves as to what might be useful when developing these packages of help.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank Ms Denise Phua for the three points. We agree with the three points. The first point is that we are indeed looking at the non-teaching staff as part of the entire ecosystem. So, I want to assure everyone that it is not that we are just looking at the SPED or the mainstream teachers alone. Both the SPED and the mainstream sectors, both the teachers and the non-teaching staff, we are looking at it holistically, because they all form the collective community who take care of our children, SPED or otherwise. That is the first point.

Second, indeed, one of the reasons why we want to form these Communities of Practice is because the SPED specialisations are much more finely calibrated than in the mainstream schools. This is where a different SPED profile will require teachers with different background and training. We have collective agreement with all the SPED schools and the SSAs that we must come together. We can no longer just operate as a fragmented sector, where each and every one of us are just trying to do the best for ourselves. That, in itself, is necessary, but not sufficient. We need to come together as a sector and ask ourselves, how can we share the best practices and also learn from other countries where there are better or different practices from us.

For example, even just within autism, Ms Denise Phua will know that there is a wide spectrum of different needs, from mild to serious. There are also different intervention techniques. We want to be able to level up the professional competencies of our SPED school teachers and community, and this is why coming together, having each other as partners in the journey is so important to levelling up the competencies and professionalism of our SPED sector.

Last but not least, the third point. MOE, both for the mainstream schools and in the SPED schools, is keenly aware that the increase in shared parental leave and other leave schemes will have an impact on our workforce because many of the people at the child-bearing age are with us in MOE and the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF). I think we are the largest shareholder in this segment of the population.

Having said that, that is why we need to make sure that we put in place measures, particularly, in the SPED schools, to make sure that we have a pool of relief teachers who can come in and help our SPED teachers when they need to go on leave – if they go on maternity leave, on urgent medical leave, or if they just have to take some time off to go and attend courses.

But I must say this, and we need the support of everyone here, because finding relief teachers to come into the SPED schools is one order of magnitude more difficult than finding relief teachers for the mainstream schools. A Math teacher can go in and teach Math in a larger number of mainstream schools. A SPED teacher that specialises in a special needs profile is more likely to only be able to cater to that profile of students and their needs. So, for us to build up that pool, it is not something that is easy, but it is something that MOE is committed to working on with MSF, the SSAs and our SPED schools, to build this up progressively. I look forward to everyone's support.