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The Ministry of Education (MOE) plans to increase manpower funding for special education (SPED) schools.

Education Minister Chan Chun Sing said this in Parliament on Oct. 5, responding to Member of Parliament Denise Phua's question about salary scales for educators and other staff in mainstream, preschool and SPED schools.

Salaries to remain market competitive

Chan said that the salaries of officers in MOE's schemes of service are reviewed periodically and in consultation with the Public Service Division.

Salary adjustments will take into consideration the gap between salaries of civil service officers' salaries and that of the market.

Adjustments will be made to ensure that overall salary packages remain market competitive, when appropriate, where larger adjustments are generally made made when the gap with the market benchmarks is wider, Chan said.

He listed the recent example where some 35,000 eligible education officers (EOs), 1,600 allied educators (AEDs) and 800 MOE Kindergarten educators (MKEs) had their monthly salary increased by five to 10 per cent on Oct. 1, 2022.

Salary review ongoing for early childhood educators

These adjustments also apply to MOE staff seconded to other agencies.

This includes early childhood educators in government supported preschools, and the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) is conducting a salary review to ensure that educators' salaries are commensurate with their contributions and professional skills.

The salary will be completed by the end of 2022, and the changes will be implemented from 2023 onwards.

More manpower funding for SPED schools

With regard to the salaries of educators in SPED schools, Chan said these institutions are run by social service agencies (SSAs).

While SPED schools do receive full funding from MOE, the SSAs retain "substantial" autonomy in their human resource practices, which includes how they compensate their school staff.

However, Chan added that MOE will work closely with and support the SSAs to ensure that the salaries for SPED educators remain competitive through periodic compensation reviews, where the last review was conducted in 2020 followed by 2018.

He said MOE will also provide additional manpower funding to SSAs, with the first tranche implemented in 2021 and the second will follow in 2024, and continue to work with the SSAs to ensure SPED teachers will have good career progressions, and updated salary guidelines.

For the salaries of other SPED school staff who are not educators, such as psychologists, Chan said SSAs take reference from the National Council of Social Service salary guidelines, which are updated annually.

MOE works in stages

Phua posed a follow up question to Chan, asking why MOE announced salary adjustments unilaterally and in stages, instead of an across the board announcement.

For instance, MOE announced in August 2022 that all eligible EOs, AEDs and MKEs will receive a five to 10 per cent salary increase.

This was followed by another announcement in September 2022, stating that a salary review is ongoing for early childhood educators, with the changes kicking expected to kick in from 2023.

Phua suggested that MOE consider making such announcements to all education service providers together.

Chan responded to this, explaining that MOE reviews salary scales regularly, but the work is done in stages.

For each time that a change is announced for one profession, the government also takes into account other professions, within and beyond the sector's professions, to make sure that the relativities and the benchmarks are correct, Chan said.

He added that the way in which the salaries and remuneration packages of the public sector is computed is "not a secret", saying that the methodology is an open one that MOE will be "happy to share" with the rest of SSAs.

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