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SINGAPORE \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The question arose after an announcement in March that three new SPED schools will be set up by the early 2030s<\/span><\/a> to cater to a rising number of students diagnosed with autism with intellectual disability.<\/p>\n The minister\u2019s 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\u2019s educator pool, as they serve under the social service agencies which run these schools.<\/p>\n In a separate parliamentary reply in July to Workers\u2019 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.<\/p>\n Despite the attrition rate in SPED schools, the teacher workforce has grown.<\/p>\n From 2021 to 2025, the workforce grew from about 1,600 to 1,900, while student enrolment grew from about 7,000 to 9,000 with the addition of five SPED schools, said the minister.<\/p>\n This means the teacher workforce has grown by 18%, compared with a 28% increase in student numbers over the same period.<\/p>\n To grow the SPED teacher workforce in tandem with the increase in student population, Lee said MOE has been working with the social service agencies to improve remuneration, recruitment and professional development efforts.<\/p>\n MOE updated salary guidelines for this group in 2024, said Lee, adding that the ministry has worked with the sector to adopt the recommended salary ranges and implement \u201cstronger performance-based remuneration\u201d.<\/p>\n The ministry had previously said that between 2024 and 2026, SPED classroom teachers could receive salary increases<\/span><\/a> of up to 12%, while teacher aides could receive increases of up to 15%.<\/p>\n By 2026, these teachers are expected to earn monthly salaries ranging from $3,000 to more than $7,000, while teacher aide salaries will range between $2,000 and over $4,000.<\/p>\n A shared pool of relief teachers<\/span><\/a>, who can step in when SPED teachers are away for training or leave, has been made available to the schools, Lee noted.<\/p>\n To help reduce teachers\u2019 administrative burden, MOE has also been onboarding SPED schools onto Parents Gateway, an app that helps schools communicate with parents. Half of the schools are scheduled to be onboarded by the third quarter of 2027.<\/p>\n The minister added that MOE has supported the sector through recruitment efforts and professional development. A leadership development programme for the sector was also introduced in 2025.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE \u2013 About one in 10 special education (SPED) teachers resigned over the past five years, with the most commonly cited grounds being a desire…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90992,"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-90991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90991","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=90991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/90992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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