'Establishing boundaries': Teachers don't need to give personal number to parents, or reply after work hours

Teachers will no longer be required to answer work-related messages outside school hours, and will provide parents with only their official email and office number.

Speaking at the 2024 Schools Work Plan Seminar on Sep. 18, Minister for Education Chan Chun Sing shared about setting boundaries and recalibrating expectations of educators, as well as streamlining some non-teaching duties like exam duties and admin work.

"We should not expect to do everything for everyone at all times, at the same time. This is not a movie title. We don't need to be everywhere, everything, everyone, all at the same time.

We are not superhuman. If we do not prioritise, we do ourselves a disservice; we also do our efforts and our students a disservice."

Lightening teachers' workload

To help lighten teachers' workloads, Chan announced that the Ministry of Education (MOE) will streamline non-teaching duties, including exam duties and admin work.

One example would be consolidating the GCE oral exams for English and Mother Tongue, reducing the examination admin workload by 10 per cent, or about 700 man-days.

By 2025, the oral exam periods will be further consolidated into a single period of three full days and two afternoons in July.

From 2027, separate 'N' or 'O' Level exam periods will no longer exist.

This will reduce the number of exam sessions by about half and lessen the invigilation load by up to 5,000 man-days.

Parents can submit documents via soft copy

MOE will also pilot a feature in Parents Gateway, the portal for schools to communicate with parents, that allows parents to submit their child's documents for absences electronically.

Teachers will then be notified of their students' absence and no longer need to manually collect and verify the documents.

The pilot will be conducted in 10 schools across primary to pre-university level in the first school term of 2025.

It will be progressively rolled out to all schools by the end of 2025.

"We will continue to explore ways to streamline our curriculum and work to enable the teachers to focus more on the students development and their value dispositions, beyond the transmission of content knowledge," said Chan.

Setting boundaries and reducing workload

Beyond streamlining admin work, Chan also noted the need to set boundaries and "recalibrate expectations on what educators should and should not do".

Teachers should not be expected to respond to work-related messages outside of school hours, except for emergencies or urgent duty-related matters.

"Can I declare this: I never check my son's spelling list. It is not that I am an irresponsible parent. It is not even that I am a chill parent. It is just that I want him to remember it is his spelling list, it is not my spelling list.

It is his job to figure out and remember this, and this is part of his learning. It is not that we care less. In fact, it is because I care for him, I want him to grow, I want him to develop. I do not want him to develop a crutch mentality."

In addition, teachers are not required to give parents their personal mobile numbers; they are to use only official channels, such as their official email and office numbers when contacting parents.

Chan noted that he does not want to make it a habit for educators getting "buzzed" at different times of the day and to protect educators from "a very small minority that can take up an inordinate amount of time and effort".

"All this is to establish the boundaries to allow our educators to focus on conducting classes and student activities, and to ensure that our educators have protected time after school hours to take care of your families, rest and recharge."

MOE will also place greater emphasis on parents' expected conduct when interacting with school staff and will take firm action against those who harass or abuse the staff.

"Today, I want to start this conversation. I have just started with the tip of the iceberg on what we should set as the baseline expectations to enable our educators to focus and prioritise student-centric work," Chan added.

Top photos via Chan Chun Sing/FB.