Education Minister Chan Chun Sing said that teachers should use official channels like their e-mail when contacting parents. - Photo: ST
SINGAPORE: Teachers are not required to share their personal phone numbers, and do not need to respond to work-related messages after school hours, said Education Minister Chan Chun Sing.
Instead, they should use official channels like their e-mail and office number when contacting parents, and respond to work-related messages after school hours only in the event of emergencies, he added.
“Within a normal work day, if it’s not an emergency, beyond 5pm, you don’t have to respond to whether (the parents’) son must wear a brown or yellow T-shirt,” said Chan, who was speaking at the Ministry of Education (MOE) Schools Work Plan Seminar on Wednesday (Sept 18).
“All this is to establish boundaries, to allow educators to focus on conducting class and student activities, and to ensure that our educators have protected time after school hours to take care of (their) families, rest, and recharge,” he added.
The event was held at the Singapore Expo and attended by over 1,700 people, including teachers, school leaders and parents. Minister of State for Education Gan Siow Huang and Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education Shawn Huang were also present.
The new boundaries set for teachers are part of refreshed Guidelines for School-Home Partnership, to guide schools and parents on how they can “work together positively, constructively, and respectfully”, Chan said.
The guidelines were developed through engagements with more than 300 teachers and parents from May to August 2024, said MOE. Mr Chan said schools can apply these guidelines in a way that best fits their own context, in consultation with teachers and parents.
Chan said that parents should not contact teachers about things like what attire their child should wear to school tomorrow, or where their spelling list is, as these should be the student’s responsibilities.
“It is your job to figure it out and remember that this is part of your learning,” he added, while giving an example about how he does not check his son’s spelling list.
Chan defined emergencies as instances when the health and welfare of a child is at risk.
“We make a distinction between what’s important, and for what’s important, we will go all out... for unimportant things, we can take our time and manage it differently,” he said, adding that a teacher’s duty of care should not overwhelm his or her duty to help the child grow.
An MOE spokeswoman said that while teachers are not expected to provide their personal mobile numbers to parents, some may have done so for ease of communication, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Parents should communicate with teachers via e-mail and contact the school’s general office if they have urgent requests, she added. “These do not apply in cases of emergencies or exigencies of duty where prompt attention and communication are required.”
Teachers may respond to work-related messages the next working day if they could not take calls or access their e-mail during the school day due to lessons or duties, or if the queries and requests were made beyond work hours. Each school has different operating hours, said the spokeswoman.
Tan Chen Kee, Deputy Director-General of Education (Schools) and Director of Schools at MOE, said schools, teachers and parents will need to have conversations about how to implement these guidelines.
The ministry will work with schools to implement this over the next few years, she said.
Parents need to know not to “over parent”, Tan said, not to solve their children’s problems for them, and learn to work with the school. They should let their children accept the consequences of their actions.
To further protect teachers, there will be a new engagement charter, Chan said, to make clear that “boorish and bullying behaviour is unacceptable”. He added that the ministry will take firm action against individuals who threaten, insult, or abuse its staff.
Teacher’s workload will also be managed, he said. Currently, teachers have had their exam administrative load reduced by 10 per cent, and invigilation load by 15 per cent, and technology will continue to be explored to reduce administrative work, he added.
A new process will also be piloted, where parents can submit their child’s medical certificates online via Parents Gateway, which will go to School Cockpit Mobile, a system that provides schools with administration support, to update teachers.
The pilot will be conducted in 10 schools across the primary to pre-university levels in the first school term of 2025, and the feature will gradually be introduced to all schools by the end of 2025.
In addition, from 2026, schools can have an option to run either the Applied Learning Programme (ALP) and Learning Life Programme (LLP), or stick to running both, said Chan.
The ALP and LLP are initiatives by MOE to help students learn beyond the classroom, through hands-on activities that help them contextualise what they learn. These could be programmes in robotics or drama, for instance.
This is to help schools free up manpower for other priorities like training for teachers, Chan said, which will, in turn, give teachers time to focus more on student development and imparting values beyond content knowledge.
Parents and schools should communicate with kind words, work together to role model the values for children, and support children in building connections with one another, and develop good habits, said Chan.
He also introduced a set of resources, or a “toolbox” of strategies for parents, which will include tips on creating safe home environments and managing challenges like academic anxiety and screen time limits. - The Straits Times/ANN
