SINGAPORE – About one in 10 special education (SPED) teachers resigned over the past five years, with the most commonly cited grounds being a desire to change job type, personal reasons and family commitments.
Education Minister Desmond Lee gave the latest numbers in a written parliamentary reply on Oct 6 to Charlene Chen (Tampines GRC). She had asked about growth and attrition in the SPED teacher workforce, and efforts to improve their retention.
The question arose after an announcement in March that three new SPED schools will be set up by the early 2030s to cater to a rising number of students diagnosed with autism with intellectual disability.
The minister’s reply marks the first time the Ministry of Education (MOE) has disclosed the attrition rate of SPED teachers. Such educators are not part of MOE’s educator pool, as they serve under the social service agencies which run these schools.
In a separate parliamentary reply in July to Workers’ Party MP He Ting Ru (Sengkang GRC) about educator attrition in mainstream schools, MOE had said that an average of 750 teachers resigned annually over the past five years. This represented a resignation rate of around 2%, or one in 50 teachers.
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