S'pore teachers highest paid in world

i'm surprised the govt actually allow 6hrs of tuition a week for moe teachers to moonlight..is there something wrong with the public education system?

knocking at 6pm is nowhere near the private sector that I work in, knock off almost every nite at 8pm. tonite left the office at 830pm.

my engineer grad classmates, they knock off at 6pm, still can go back home take a nap half an hour, at seven drive out to become a property agents. also moonlighting


some tots about private tution fr mr tankinlian below:
Saturday, October 05, 2013

Improve efficiency and reduce cost of living in Singapore

There are many aspects of Singapore that lead to inefficiency and high cost. I share some of them below:

a) Private tuition. The flaw in our education system make it necessary for parents to engage private tutors for their children. The manpower used in private tutors, and the need to travel to receive or get private tuition on a one-on-one basis, must lead to more resources being put in the education system.

b) Government online services. By saving an hour of the time of the civil servants, the badly designed processes caused the public to send several hours to online processes, including the login and searching for the online form. The total cost to the economy is several times of the attempted savings.

The inefficiency has resulted in high cost of doing business and the high cost of living.

If the problems are not recognized, the situation will continue to get worse. It has already reached a very bad state.

I want Singapore to be better, and will continue to point out the problems that should be recognized and rectified to improve the situation.

Why bother moving up the ladder? The promotions that comes (plus the additional workload and responsibility) just isn't worth it.

I've got friends, both teaching couple with young kids... moonlighting and almost doubling their income. It's just a matter of whether you want it or not that's all. I'd kill to be able to moonlight with my current (8-5) job

The problem is not with the education system. Even if schools employed more staff to exclusively handle adhoc projects and stuff that take up teaching and lesson preparation time, there will still be a demand for tuition services.

Why?

Because the purpose of tuition, like most activities that are additional to the standard curriculum, are meant to provide, to those lucky enough to have it, an edge over their peers. If you are a high net worth individual, will you not want to send your children to the best schools, where they may socialise with kids of similar social class? Or will you allow for them to enrolled into a school of ill repute, and risk them falling into 'bad company?'

As long serving members of society, we all must know how important every little bit of advantage counts towards achieving (socially-defined) material success, and especially so during the formative years of our career. Personally, I see the problem as society being too competitive; the rich's constant effort to cement their position, and the not-rich's ever industrious effort to join the rich. The not-rich, which is most of the island's population, may call foul and deem the removal of tuition as 'un-meritocratic.' "How can my son get the grades to study medicine if he can't get tuition?" a parent may say.

Can an education system not be competitive? Students on national and tertiary-level examinations are graded on a bell-curve; only the top percentile are awarded the top grades. And so it is with the top prize going to the top achievers in this (and all developed) society. If the top grade were achieved with an absolute score, as opposed to the top percentile, and almost everyone acored staight As, how are they going to short list candidates for the top jobs?

It's probably (tuition) business as usual.

Having seen quite many students goig thru schools here, I somehow feel edu system Here educate less, but more on classifying students to diff groups. Top scholars becme the leaders. Middle ones the middle earners. And those cannot make it. And the types of jobs for each group.

Having said that, the money reward is tempting, plus giving tuitio is easy cos u r familiar w the syllabus. Worth Considering teaching quite seriously .

It's the kiasu syndrome in Singapore, from kiasu parents...

I know of A graded kids getting tuition. So, if that A grade kid is getting tuition and my kid isn't, my kid is going to lose to that one... So better send him/her for tuition. That's the mentality of some parents.

And the funny thing is, a high A1 and a low A1 at O levels is still an A1! With the recent announcement to change PSLE scoring to banding, I'm not sure if it will make any difference, I hope so.

When I have my own kids studying in pri/sec school, I certainly wouldn't want to put him/her through tuition unless he/she is doing too poorly (below realistic expectations) and need some extra help.

Excellent comments!

I really feel that instead of asking others to change or MOE to change the education systems, we should be the change we wanted to see in the world.

If we are parents, we just need to lead by example. We use our own actions to show our kids what's the right things to do. They will build a solid characters following us. (shouldn't that be what we do daily?)

If we are teachers, we need to recognise that every kids has their own abilities. We need to encourage the stronger kids to develop compassionate heart, so that they can have a chance to lead those weaker students. For those weak students, we need to pay more attentions to see how best are they learning? Are they audio/visual kids? (at least try, ok teacher? remember: Teach less, learn more!)

If we are students, we need to find our goal in this world. Why are we born at all? What's our passion. Follow your heart and not your brain. Seek hard and don't settle. (this is a more fun way to learn, instead of just study hard. Trust me!)

Love and Compassion - Let's make our future brighter each and everyday.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/sing...42374.html

Quote:

MOE reviewing policy of allowing teachers to give private tuition

SINGAPORE: The Education Ministry (MOE) is reviewing its policy of allowing teachers to give private tuition.

Under existing guidelines, teachers can give up to six hours of tuition per week.

Tuition centre operators Channel NewsAsia spoke to said that if the rules are tightened, the pay of tutors and in turn, tuition fees, may have to be raised.

Operators said parents prefer MOE-trained teachers and if rules are tightened, the demand and pay for such tutors may increase.

Max Tan, director of True Learning Centre, said: "Many tuition centres will be willing to pay higher. We will have to compete with other tuition centres. As a result, you may see that these full-time tutors will be earning much more."

The centre said that under such circumstances, tuition fees may then have to be raised.

But this is likely to affect only agencies with a large pool of current MOE teachers as its tutors.

Another agency Channel NewsAsia spoke to said it is not expecting to raise fees, as less than 20 per cent of its tutors are teachers.

The boom of tuition business in Singapore is not without reason. The Sg sch cirriculum is aggressive and everytime they revise it, more content become examinable. A friend practising engineering for 20 yrs told me in his engineering career, he hardly touch those mathematics taught in the uni.

Perhaps the whole system shld be revamped and education shld be made more educational. Parents know that a good set of result will ensure their kids a career in the gov sector. That's why everyone invest, or perhaps spend big time in tuitioin.

Tuitioning is just outsourced parenting. If you don't sent your kids to tuition, you are not a good parent mindset is very strong here.

Given that most parents are working now, this is just a convenient way out to parenting dues.

If the system rewards academic acheivements, the players will be motivated towards their goals. ie kiasu parents.

just like in the hoods, younger ones will move to drug dealing if they see Mercedes-driving drug dealers as role models.

give right incentive, people will change their behaviour.