With Singapore’s local workforce growth slowing due to an ageing population and a widening range of attractive career options, recruiting teachers is “hardly a simple fix”, said Minister for Education Desmond Lee.
He was speaking at the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) Committee of Supply debate in Parliament on Tuesday (March 3).
During the Committee of Supply debate for the ministry on Monday evening, Workers’ Party (WP) MP Assoc Prof Jamus Lim (Sengkang GRC) had raised a cut on class sizes and teacher recruitment.
He said it is paradoxical that teachers in Singapore spend six hours more a week at work compared to their OECD counterparts in 54 other teaching systems, but clocked less teaching time.
“It is clear that the debate isn’t so much about whether we should reduce our class sizes, but about how straightforward the solution is — to hire more teachers.
“The ministry’s standard response to this has been that this will compromise the quality of the teachers that we hire, while robbing other sectors of talent. MOE also says that there’s a dearth of teaching talent. I’ve always found such arguments to be disingenuous,” the WP MP said.
He also suggested that teachers should either be paid more, or have their workload reduced.
@asiaone Responding to Workers’ Party MP Assoc Prof Jamus Lim’s cut on class sizes and teacher recruitment, Minister for Education Desmond Lee on Tuesday (March 3) explained that apart from a tight labour market, teacher recruitment is not solely based on qualifications, but also the aptitude to teach and heart to nurture. #sgnews #Singapore #Parliament #Education #Teacher #Schools ♬ original sound – AsiaOne
A tight labour market: Hardly a simple fix
Addressing Assoc Prof Lim’s cut, Education Minister Desmond Lee shared that his ministry has already ramped up teacher recruitment “significantly” and that “these are not trivial challenges”.
