Teachers feeling overworked and burnt out is a perennial issue in Singapore. Parents play a big role in this — be it in terms of disciplining their child, intervening with how teachers carry out their lessons, or expecting teachers to be 'surrogate parents' or 'babysitters'.
suitcase from her workplace back home. She’s neither a flight attendant nor a fashion designer — but a teacher bringing back her students’ papers for the weekend.
However, having to spend hours clearing administrative work, planning co-curricular activities and handling parents have tired these teachers out. “Sometimes, there are children who need someone to speak to, and it can be a life or death situation. We’ll chat into the early hours of the morning, and while draining, I’m glad I can make a difference,” said the teacher with 20 years of experience.
"How can we stop teachers from being exhausted and burnt out? They are already entering the school before sunrise and leaving only after sunset. The marking and calls to be answered continue at home," he said. Over the years, MOE has launched a slew of initiatives to better support teachers — most recently via a teacher-focused version of mental health online portal, Mindline. Still, the educators interviewed believe that more could be done to address the key issue of heavy workload.
Separately, the Singapore Teachers’ Union also provides a suite of career coaching services, as well as counselling services, to help its members"identify and overcome workplace challenges", said its secretary-general Mike Thiruman. It added:"Parents and the public can also work closely with teachers to establish positive partnerships and set appropriate expectations on the teachers’ responsibilities for our children’s development."TEACHERS BEMOAN PARENTS' INTERFERENCE,"LACK OF RESPECT"
And with MOE encouraging more blended learning post-pandemic — where students learn through a mix of online and offline activities held in school and at home — STU's Mr Thiruman said parental support would “become even more critical for students to benefit from it”. She added: “Parents are very permissive and will insist that their child is right over other professional adults in the school, who may be all saying the same thing. It’s always the teachers or school’s fault ... This makes it hard to discipline the students because they don’t receive the consequences at home.”
A primary school teacher of 15 years, who wanted to be known only as Mr Ng, said: “When I first started working, there were no parent WhatsApp group chats where parents can talk about their grievances and make troll remarks. To support schools, MOE provides principles and guidelines for schools to formulate their discipline policies and approaches
Echoing the sentiment of the teachers who spoke to TODAY, the ministry reiterated parents' important role when it comes to students' behaviour. Some requests which teachers have received from parents include reporting to them when their child leaves school, creating a special curriculum to cater to their child, and demanding one-on-one tuition for their child after work hours.
Some parents would compare homework, spelling lists, use of technology in classrooms and more, which forces teachers to do even more for their students to avoid incurring the ire of parents. Mr Ng noted that some parents would also ask for concessions for their children’s marks to raise their grades, to which he would respond by explaining the real world consequences of such mistakes.
As her school did not offer a subject to students at certain levels, a parent sent a letter of complaint — forcing teachers in her school to create a year’s curriculum for a single child. “The way schools interrogate teachers when a complaint is received can be emotionally draining and discouraging for a teacher,” she said.
She pointed out: “It’s hard to be innovative when teaching in class and to be my authentic self with these students, who are young adults, when a video or photo could send the wrong image to one or two parents when out of context.”For Ms Loh, administrative work would take up most of her day even back when she first started teaching in 1993 — not something she had expected to be saddled with when she joined the profession.
“I didn't need to deal with CCAs and these event planning activities, but I was still handling administrative work like contacting parents, collecting forms and daily attendance for my form class,” Ms Loh said.
In 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, they had the added job of contact tracing, ensuring students turn up for online classes, and trying their best to engage them despite being behind a screen. While policies differ among schools as COVID-19 becomes endemic, some will switch classes to home-based learning when more than five students get infected — hence the SLS platform and years of practice have helped make the switch easier.
It added:"Schools have flexibility to pace the implementation of selected initiatives, including deferring implementation if this helps to manage staff workload." The use of technology is also encouraged to streamline administrative processes, the ministry said. For example, teachers can now monitor and track students' attendance using mobile phones, or collect consent forms and disseminate information to parents via Parents' Gateway, a mobile application.
On the benefits of having smaller classrooms, Mr Ng added: “When one or two students don’t understand a topic, I can just pause the class and focus on this topic, and not need to leave behind other kids to keep the entire class engaged. With fewer students, they are also easy to connect with.” This is also used by the rest of the Civil Service and allows them to"recognise the good work that have done", said MOE.
"MOE regularly updates and engages all school leaders on key human resource policies and issues which include performance management policies, good practices and expected standards of performance assessment," the ministry added. “In the 1990s, parents would not contact us unless there was an urgent matter… It was a respectable job to be a teacher,” she said.Sandra, the mother tongue teacher, hopes that she can be allowed to focus on teaching.
And in that regard, the school leadership plays an important role."Collectively, school leadership plays a pivotal role in school culture, work-life harmony, workload, expectations of teachers as well as shielding teachers from abusive parents and students," he said.
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