Drive to recruit teachers

**Voodoo Vince** · 09-12-2008, 06:24 PM

Drive to recruit teachers
By Amelia Tan

OFFICE workers on lunch breaks were greeted by a fake classroom set up opposite Raffles Place MRT station on Tuesday.

The desks and chairs were part of the Ministry of Education's (MOE) four-day drive to recruit mid-career teachers.

Previously, MOE used to hold recruitment seminars at hotels for mid-career entrants to the teaching force. But this year, it is adopting an active approach by bringing the drive directly to interested applicants.

'Bringing the recruitment drive to the heart of Raffles Place will allow us to to target office workers but have been thinking about teaching and allow them to find out more about it,' said MOE's recruitment marketing manager Gladys Chew.

She said the ministry values people with previous job experience as they have a wealth of diverse knowledge which they can tap to make lessons come alive.

'For example, a person from the banking sector can bring examples from his or her job into economics classes.

'People with a marketing background can use their job knowledge to engage the students in their lessons,' Ms Chew explained.

An MOE spokesman said more people with a number of years of work experience are joining the education service as a result of MOE's continued efforts in recruiting mid-career transfers to teaching in recent years.

The number of mid-career teachers has increased from 15 per cent in 2002 to 22 per cent in 2007.

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking...ry_312291.html

richardsng_era · 10-12-2008, 01:21 AM

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/cna/2008120...o-231650b.html

<CITE class=auth>Channel NewsAsia - Wednesday, December 10</CITE>

SINGAPORE: The Education Ministry (MOE) is bringing forward manpower hiring plans amidst the economic downturn, in hope of employing more than 2,200 teachers next year.

To raise the proportion of mid—career professionals in the teaching force, MOE held its first large—scale recruitment drive at Raffles Place on Tuesday. With no age limit for applicants, the ministry received over 100 job enquiries.

Anu Rupa, engineer at an oil & gas company, said: "The current situation is uncertain for all the industries. Oil and gas, as you know, is hit. Teaching — I look at it as a very wise and evergreen industry."

Most of the younger applicants told Channel NewsAsia that they would be getting less if they join teaching, but it is a compromise they are willing to make.

Alexandria Senanayake, marketing executive, said: "I will probably be taking a pay cut, but it is not too much of a concern. If you enjoy your job and you love it, and if you get paid a certain amount, I think I will be happy enough."

As for older applicants in managerial positions, they said making all recruits start from the bottom in the teaching force, under—utilises talent and disregards experience.

Foo Chuan Yong, human resource consultant, said: "You have just one model to attract everybody when you need to customise the model to attract more applicants. You don’t expect somebody who has 16 years, 18 years experience to come in to be a teacher at S$4,000. There is some unbalance in terms of benchmark in compensation and scope of work."

Gladys Chew, recruitment marketing manager at MOE, said: "As in all careers, you need to prove yourself first. You have to go for training, embark on teaching first and I think the career prospects are really good."

Judging from the numbers who have made a mid—career switch to teaching, many share the same view. As of last year, mid—career switchers made up 22 per cent of the teaching workforce, up from 15 per cent in 2002.

All successful applicants will have a chance to try out teaching in schools for a minimum of four weeks before they commit to a teacher training programme at the National Institute of Education.

— CNA/so

**UnknownKiller** · 10-12-2008, 08:33 AM

10 years down the road,Singapore is a education city.A school country

***StarDust*** · 10-12-2008, 10:01 AM

Education industry is a sunshine industry.

**hometutors.sg** · 10-12-2008, 04:10 PM

Interesting Im looking for many teachers as well. And we definitely pay a much higher rate than MOE

***StarDust*** · 11-12-2008, 11:20 AM

In this downturn, many switched careers to teaching profession.

**hometutors.sg** · 11-12-2008, 04:01 PM

OFFICE workers on lunch breaks were greeted by a fake classroom set up opposite Raffles Place MRT station on Tuesday.

The desks and chairs were part of the Ministry of Education's (MOE) four-day drive to recruit mid-career teachers.

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking...ry_312291.html

This is definitely a good initiative as most of the bright minds are in the corporate sector. And this will also reduce the class size since more teachers will be available.