The Education Ministry should come up with guidelines that
strictly define the role of teachers who are assigned to carry out
administrative tasks and those who teach.
HAVE teachers not
enough to teach that they are crying out to be “allowed to teach”? Or,
have teachers been so drawn away from their teaching duty that they are
pleading hard to “get (back) to teach”? Sadly, it is the latter that is
of concern.
Teachers lament that they are not able to concentrate
on their teaching because too many non-teaching activities and
responsibilities are thrust upon them. There are the numerous analyses
to do, reports to write, data to enter online, meetings, functions,
seminars and workshops to attend. They also complain that they have
co-curricular activities and games to manage and
students to counsel.
Granted
that some of these activities do have
educational value that may
indirectly contribute to classroom teaching effectiveness, teachers are
not happy at the seemingly uncoordinated and inordinate manner by which
they are called upon to be involved.
The contention is that much
of the “paper work” teachers are required to do serve only the purposes
of officials higher up. Teachers do not see any benefits to their
charges at all.
With all these distractions, the committed
teachers are worried sick that they may labour in vain in their
classroom teaching; or they may themselves be burnt out. Others may
already have thrown in the towel.
On the other hand, the
less-than-responsible ones are enjoying the “outings” and “deviations”
and unashamedly claiming that teaching is after all an “easy” life.
For the newly recruited teachers, this is indeed a confusing scenario!
There
is indeed a case for the Ministry and education authorities to better
coordinate and reassess the true needs of the paper work given to
schools and expecting their feedback to be uploaded usually within short
notice.
On the other hand, teachers must also recognise that
some extracurricular activities are essential and therefore rightly
become part of their duties.
Yet, with consent, approval and
support from the authorities higher up, schools can do better. Here are
my thoughts and suggestions.
A normal secondary
day school with a
student population of around 2,000 and running two sessions will have a
principal, three senior assistants, an afternoon supervisor, four heads
of
academic departments, five student counsellors and a teaching staff
of about 120.
This means that the school has 14 administrator-teachers, that is 12% of the staff.
Premier
and other schools of acclaim may even have more academic and
administrative staff. Smaller schools need no afternoon supervisors,
have a proportionate number of counsellors whilst other positions are
all intact.
These school administrators are called
administrator-teachers because besides administering and managing their
respective “office”, they are required to also teach some (10 to 14)
periods a week. This may seem minimal as compared to a normal teacher’s
load of 24 to 28 periods.
But, consider the minds of these
administrator-teachers. Their first concern must be that they administer
well the “office” they have been promoted and assigned to. They must
also realise that what they do and decide now affect more than their own
classes. They are helping to administer the whole school.
Their
teaching periods may average two per day. But the timetable could be
such that it is one period in the early half and the other period in the
latter half of the day. Being conscientious and committed, they are
teachers who want to perform well in their given tasks.
So, it is
not just about going into classes for 40 minutes per period. There must
also be necessary preparations to ensure that each lesson is enriching
and benefiting to their charges.
Usually, they are torn between
the demands of their administrative offices and the teaching needs of
their classes. More often than not, our school structures and
expectations being such, their administrative duties take precedence.
To accommodate, the more experienced administrator-teachers opt to teach “less important” subjects and classes.
This
has resulted in their teaching becoming, much to their own chagrin,
less than exemplary to their colleagues. Worse, there are some teachers
who use the situation to justify their own lackadaisical demeanour.
This
sad scenario begets the question: Why not allow administrator-teachers
to be full-time administrators? They can then focus on the
administrative tasks, take over the paper work now being assigned to
teachers, “represent” teachers in many out-of-
school activities and most
importantly reduce the burden from teachers who are not
“teaching-centric”.
After all, these administrator-teachers have
to prove their administrative prowess rather than teaching for their
next career move.
And, may I point out that former teachers who
have taken on administrative positions in the ministry or the various
education departments are not required to teach at all?
So why should teachers carrying out adminstrative work be expected to teach even if its just a few periods a week?
We
really need a transformational change here. Would the Education
Ministry allow schools to be administered by full-time administrators
who were teachers before?
By LIONG KAM CHONG
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