Hi everyone. In one of my recent articles, I started a conversation with one of my readers Chee Ming on the topic of teaching in Singapore and he explained to me why he didn't want to become a teacher in Singapore. Given that both my parents are retired teachers and have spent a life time teaching in Singapore (without ever questioning the system, as you would expect), Chee Ming sheds some light as to why some young and intelligent Singaporeans are put off teaching as a career in Singapore. It's a shame as I feel that Chee Ming sounds like the kind of person who would make a brilliant teacher - but here's our conversation reproduced here so it may reach a wider audience and I invite others, particularly teachers, to comment please. Let's try to help Chee Ming.
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| Are bright young Singaporeans put off entering teaching? |
Chee Ming: If I want to go to UK to teach Mandarin, do I qualify? I do have a degree in Chinese Language and Literature but it's from, sigh x infinite, SIM.
Limpeh: Hi there. Let me explain this to you step by step.
Step 1: You need a teaching qualification - teaching is a skilled profession, it is not sufficient to be a fluent Mandarin speaker with a degree in Chinese language/literature.
Step 2: You need teaching experience. So I hope you've been teaching Chinese for a while in Singapore.
Step 3: Once you've done steps 1 + 2, then you can hunt for a job and start applying for teaching positions in London (or wherever in the UK) as a Chinese teacher.
Step 4: You then need to receive a job offer from a company (say a language school or university) who are willing to hire you as a teacher and sponsor your work permit.
Step 5: Your employer will then sort out your work permit for you and once that's settled, then you can start work.
How far down the process are you at the moment? Have you done steps 1 + 2?
By that token, where your degree is from doesn't matter... As long as you have a valid teacher's training qualification in Singapore, then that's good enough for you to qualify. Here's the warning I would give you though: the demand for Chinese teachers isn't great - most people are shying away from Chinese because it is very difficult and very few people are trying to learn it. There is a growing number of young children who are subjected to it say at the age of 7 or 8 at school as an after school thing, ie. 4 x 60 mins a week. That's because the parents are saying, "I can't learn Chinese, I'm too old and it's too hard, but if my child starts very young, maybe s/he won't realize just how bloody hard it is and have an attitude problem." That's where the bulk of the work Chinese teachers are at the moment - teaching young kids, rather than adults. Just thought I'd warn you in case you wanted to teach adults.
Chee Ming: No. I have not done step 1 + 2. Reason? I remember a conversation with my sister, who is a primary teacher, a while ago. Here's how it goes:
Me: Sis, ask you something.
Sis: Shoot.
Me: What's the size of our class today?
Sis: About 35 - 40
Me: What's your class size when you are in primary school?
Sis: About 35 - 40
Me: I thought they are intending to lower the teacher to student ratio? Why so long liao, ratio still the same?
Sis: (Awkward silence for 5 seconds) It's like that one lah...
There we go. After this conversation, I totally gave up on MOE and hence, the teaching qualification. Since there's no 1, how to have 2?
Limpeh: Sorry, you need to consider getting 1 (ie. qualify as a teacher in Singapore) then if you wish to go down the path of becoming a teacher - you can't really get around it I'm afraid. The UK's doors are opened to skilled migrants and teachers are indeed skilled migrants.
Ironically, where you got your first degree from is irrelevant, as long as you have a valid teacher's training qualification and Singapore is probably the cheapest place for you to do it right now (unless you wanna go get it in somewhere like China - I don't know anything about it ...) but given that you intend to teach Mandarin in and English-speaking environment, I can't think of a better place than Singapore for you.
Why does a big class size put you off?
Chee Ming: Why does big class size put me off? I kapo your bell curve for a while. (See graphic below.)
If the class consist of students from the right end of the bell curve, whether it's by nature (天生丽质难自弃) or nurture (well, 勤能补拙), yes, class size is not an issue. What happen if the class consist of student from the wrong end of the bell curve? If you have 40 students, chances are, you will have 35 different problems (some students have the same problem). How does a teacher cater for all students within the limited time? Of course, educators can adopt a "Too bad you sux" attitude, let the students become nobodies, then proclaim that they leave nobody behind, literally. Singapore education system doesn't really cater well for students who can't catch up (I must clarify, NOT all school adopt the "Too bad you sux" approach).
After all, schools and teacher have KPIs (which are quantifiable factors, like how many students pass their exams) to keep up with, which is tied to how much bonus they will get, which also affects the chances of them getting a higher pay rise or that very elusive promotion (I mean, how many HODs are there in a school?).
So naturally, the more ambitious (and tend to be better) teachers will go "Jesus, Buddha, Ti Gong, I promise to be a good person. Bo bi bo bi, please give me a good class" and chances are, they will get what they want (because HODs sees them as good future leaders and wants to nurture them). While that leaves those "Aiyah, good students bad students also like that, I take salary niah" teachers to take up the not-so-brilliant class (Not saying these teachers are bad, they are probably not as good). This eventually leads to the good gets better and the bad got worse.
Anyway, the conversation with my sis is NOT really about class size. It's about how promises were made and delivered. It had been advertised that teacher-to-student ratio are to be reduced, teacher-to-student ratio are to be reduced, but when it's time for a small examination (like the short conversation with my sister), they failed quite spectacularly. If the boss can fail that way, it can only mean 1) the boss lied (can't resist not to insert meme, inserts the "Blueberry man" meme); 2) the boss is incompetent; 3) both 1 and 2, an incompetent liar. It boils down to this question, would you work for such a boss?
Limpeh: Hi Chee Ming, I see what you mean. This is very interesting for me as my parents are retired teachers who have spent a lifetime teaching in Singapore. They got by, were happy enough with it but I think part of that comes with the fact that they are not the kind of people to question the system - the less questions you ask, the happier you are because you can then occupy your mind with happy thoughts on other things in life that are good (as opposed to your large class sizes...) I also have an old friend from Singapore who became a teacher (he had a teaching scholarship in fact) and he eventually left teaching after he served his bond and he told me the way the MOE treated him was pretty awful (long story, maybe I'd share it for another time...) You know, surprisingly, he never mentioned anything but large class sizes - he had other awful, terrible things to complain about, bigger fish to fry!
If teaching is indeed your calling, then it is a shame that the system is putting you off to this extent. The thing is that in a place like Singapore, there's really no other way to get around the MOE thingy - even teachers who operate in the private tuition business often gain kudos for having once worked within the system, though some who are more specialist (eg. French for A levels for example) manage to by-pass that. Maybe if you can find your niche (Chinese for Angmoh kia who has attitude problem when it comes to Mandarin ...???) then you can bypass the system? It is about thinking outside the box at this stage for you - let's try to find some innovative ideas for you.
Chee Ming: Actually hor, there's a way to get to Stage 1. Just take the teaching diploma as a private candidate. Doing that will incur a 17k school fee. Well, there's one cool thing about doing that. You can taunt your classmates for a year (the NIE diploma last a year) as you do not need to serve the 3-years bond which they must to serve, unless they say, "limpeh wu lui to break bond." But spending 17k for a bragging right for a year? Bloody not worth it
