Good afternoon Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,

BUILDING THE 21^ST CENTURY TEACHING FORCE –CHALLENGE AND RESPONSE

It gives me great pleasure to be here today at the 2^nd Teaching Scholarships Presentation Ceremony. I am heartened to see that we have 275 young people who have decided to take up a teaching scholarship. Our ceremony this afternoon recognises this important step you have taken to commit yourselves to teaching.

As Singapore moves into a knowledge-based economy, the role of teachers in society becomes even more important. We need teachers who can build a strong foundation for our children, who will teach our children how to learn, how to think, how to work with others. This will develop our children to be the knowledge workers of the future who can create value and help sustain Singapore’s success.

Good teachers and a strong education system are essential to assure Singapore’s continued economic success. Even at an individual level, as parents, all of us want our own children taught by competent and committed teachers. We want our children to have good role models in teachers who can fuel a passion for learning, and who are motivated by the intrinsic satisfaction of helping each child discover his abilities and reach his potential.

The Ministry of Education wants a dynamic and capable teaching service who will pass on the right values, attitudes and skills to the young. Building such a 21^st Century teaching service will be a major challenge.

Who will our teachers be? We have always recruited our teachers from among the better educated Singaporeans of each cohort. This is true of our teaching force today. Our older teachers were among the best educated in their cohort at a time when many Singaporeans did not even complete secondary school.

For the 21^st Century we will continue to set our sights on recruiting teachers from among the better educated of each cohort of Singaporeans. We aim to recruit new teachers from the top one-third of each cohort. This means that we recruit from degree holders and those who have done well in Polytechnics. Of course, in addition to academic qualifications, those who aspire to be teachers must have the aptitude and interest to teach, as evaluated by interviews with senior and experienced principals and teachers.

Apart from achieving a good overall quality of our teaching force, we must also make sure that we will have some of the best of each cohort come into teaching each year. This will allow us to have enough from amongst our teachers, whom we can develop into strong principals, vice-principals and heads of department for our 370 schools. Beyond the schools, we also need highly capable and far-sighted education officers to research into and develop new education programmes, design new curriculum and syllabi, run school zones and clusters, and develop and train new school leaders and teachers.

The Ministry has thus invested substantially in teaching scholarships and awards to attract some of the best young people to come into teaching. The number of MOE scholarships and awards given out has doubled within the last 3 years from 133 in 1997 to 275 this year. This is a good sign. It shows that the moves we have made to make teaching an attractive career choice are the right ones.

In the teaching service, a quiet revolution is taking place. There is a transition going on, a changing of the guard. The torch is being passed from the older generation of teachers to the younger generation.

Within the next 5 years, many of our teachers aged 50 and above will retire. This group comprises 30% of our teaching force today. We have projected that 3,500 teachers now in their 50s will retire over the next 5 years, or about 700 retirements a year. On average, every school will see ten of their most senior and experienced teachers retire by the year 2005. Put another way, the 3,500 teachers who will retire in the next 5 years would have been enough to fully staff some 50 of our schools.

These teachers retiring are our experienced and dedicated teachers who were recruited in large numbers in the 1960s when we first embarked on a major expansion of education opportunities. We salute them for their unstinting dedication to teaching. They have gone through many changes and improvements made in Education through the last 30 to 40 years. They have educated hundreds of thousands of Singaporeans. They have made our education system one of the best in the world.

Building a new generation of teachers

The task ahead now is to ensure that the education system continues to do well even as the more experienced ones retire. We need a continuous stream of new teachers coming in who can take the places of these teachers retiring. Not just in quantity but most importantly also in quality. We need a new generation of teachers who shares the same motivation and conviction as their predecessors. A new generation with the ideas, energy and drive to propel our education system into the 21^st century.

We have made steady progress in this area. Since 1996, the teaching service has seen significant improvements in pay, promotion prospects and professional upgrading opportunities. These efforts have succeeded in attracting many new and enthusiastic teachers to join the service. Over the last 3 years, we have recruited 7,000 officers. This represents more than a quarter of our teaching force of 23,500. Many of these recent recruits are now entering the schools after completing their initial teacher training.

The retirement of our experienced teachers and the recruitment of many young teachers means that the age profile of the service is changing rapidly. The centre of gravity of the teaching force will start to shift from the over 50s to the under 30s.

In 1996, one out of every two teachers was over 43 years old. Today, it is 38 years old. In 5 years’ time, one out of every 2 teachers will be under 33 years of age.

Our challenge is to ensure that the many enthusiastic young teachers now entering service continue to stay with us. We need to build up a solid core of experienced and good teachers that will be the new pillar of strength in our system as the older teachers retire. Retention will be a critical issue.

The Ministry has continually improved the service terms and conditions of teachers. In January this year, we introduced new intermediate grades to give teachers additional promotional opportunities and a faster first promotion. Good graduate teachers can now expect a promotion after 3 years. Male graduate teachers who have completed their NS are eligible for an even faster first promotion. They are considered for promotion after one year of service.

The second boost to the teaching service came 2 weeks ago when the teaching service received an average 13 % increase in salaries. What is significant in this revision is that good classroom teachers will now be eligible for consideration for a performance bonus. This stronger link between pay and performance will be an incentive for better performance.

The Ministry must continue to offer competitive terms and conditions to attract the new generation of young teachers to join and more importantly, to stay. With the change in the teacher profile, we would need to look at innovative new ways of structuring rewards and careers in teaching. This is especially important so that the young teachers that we have with us, will stay with us to become the senior teachers and school leaders of the future. One example of such innovative ideas is the part-load teaching scheme that was introduced this year.

MOE will therefore undertake a fundamental review of the pay and career structure of teachers to better shape it to meet both our organisational needs and our teachers’ personal aspirations. The reward structure will need to fit in with the different phases of a teacher’s career and life aspirations. We will be engaging a consultant to conduct the review and hope to have the findings ready in 6-9 months' time.

In closing, let me congratulate all our award recipients. Do make full use of your time in university. Go beyond just pursuing the degree. Seize all opportunities to learn and explore. Learning is a journey of self-discovery so do not be afraid to try out new things and to make some mistakes along the way. Participate actively in clubs and activities and widen your circle of friends. You will find that what is most valuable about a university education is not the subject content studied but the whole experience of learning how to think and learning from others.

Your 4 years in university will pass by quickly but I hope the lessons you learn and friends you make will last a lifetime. We hope to welcome you back soon to help build the teaching force of the 21^st Century that will Mould the Future of our Nation. Thank you.