{"id":10996,"date":"2025-11-12T21:09:33","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T13:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=10996"},"modified":"2025-11-12T21:09:33","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T13:09:33","slug":"singapore-teachers-workload-a-growing-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=10996","title":{"rendered":"Singapore teachers&#8217; workload: A growing concern"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Synopsis: Every second Wednesday of the month, The Straits Times takes a hard look at Singapore\u2019s social issues of the day with guests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Teachers in Singapore work longer than their peers in other advanced economies. They spend less time teaching but more on planning, counselling and communicating with students\u2019 parents, according to the Teaching and Learning International Survey (Talis) released on Oct 7, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"responsive-iframe-base podcast aspect-landscape podcast-embed\" title=\"podcast embed\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/omny.fm\/shows\/in-your-opinion\/are-teachers-multi-tasking-too-much\/embed\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"accelerometer;falseclipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share;\" loading=\"eager\" height=\"180\" data-testid=\"responsiveIframe\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">In total, the Talis survey polled 194,000 teachers in 55 education systems across Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Teachers in Singapore work an average of 47.3 hours a week, higher than the overall average of 41 hours. Approximately 3,500 teachers and respective school principals across all 145 public secondary schools and 10 randomly selected private secondary schools participated in the survey from April to August 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">In this episode, ST assistant podcast editor Lynda Hong examines why this is happening, and whether there is any way their workload and stress can be reduced.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">In the studio with her is Ms Sarah Tan, a former secondary school teacher with 17 years of experience and taught till 2020, but now gives tuition. She is also a mother of two children aged 13 and 15.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Mr Manogaran Suppiah was formerly the principal of Anderson Serangoon Junior College. He first started out teaching for 16 years, before moving to different departments within the Ministry of Education, including becoming the founding executive director of Academy of Singapore Teachers (AST). In 2022, he retired from his career spanning over 40 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Highlights (click\/tap above):\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">7:23 Teacher workload: Why it has gone up<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">11:08 How technology adds to and can also lighten workload<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">14:10 Learning to use AI tools?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">18:18 Administrative duties, parents\u2019 expectations<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">23:20 On teachers having to \u2018parent\u2019 students?<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">28:43 Mid-career switches from other professions to teaching: Different perspectives<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">30:00 Why education leaders must find out from teachers what is meaningless<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">33:08 School leaders, heads of departments and teachers: What\u2019s lacking?<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Read ST\u2019s Opinion section:<a href=\"https:\/\/str.sg\/w7sH?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/str.sg\/w7sH?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_self\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" data-testid=\"paragraph-test-id\"><a href=\"https:\/\/str.sg\/w7sH?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" data-testid=\"paragraph-test-id\">https:\/\/str.sg\/w7sH<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Host: Lynda Hong (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/mailto:lyndahong@sph.com.sg?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_self\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" data-testid=\"paragraph-test-id\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/mailto:lyndahong@sph.com.sg?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" data-testid=\"paragraph-test-id\">lyndahong@sph.com.sg<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/a>)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Produced and edited by: Hadyu Rahim<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Executive producers: Ernest Luis &amp; Lynda Hong<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Follow In Your Opinion Podcast here and get notified for new episode drops:<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Channel:<a href=\"https:\/\/str.sg\/w7Qt?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/str.sg\/w7Qt?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_self\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" data-testid=\"paragraph-test-id\"><a href=\"https:\/\/str.sg\/w7Qt?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" 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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis: Every second Wednesday of the month, The Straits Times takes a hard look at Singapore\u2019s social issues of the day with guests. Teachers in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}