Special education teachers hope to see salaries reviewed after pay bump for MOE teachers

SINGAPORE: Some teachers at special education schools are calling for their salaries to be reviewed after pay bumps were announced for teachers employed by the Ministry of Education (MOE). 

The pay increase, announced last Tuesday (Aug 16), will benefit about 35,000 education officers, 1,600 allied educators and 800 MOE kindergarten educators. 

Unlike teachers in mainstream schools, teachers at special education, or SPED, schools, are not directly employed by the Education Ministry. However, a few teachers are sometimes seconded from the ministry to the schools.

SPED teachers who are not employed or seconded by MOE will not benefit from the salary increases announced recently, confirmed Mr Andy Lim, secretary-general of the Singapore Manual & Mercantile Workers’ Union, which represents teachers with SPED schools. 

In announcing the pay raise, the Education Ministry said that the increase of 5 to 10 per cent was to ensure that overall pay packages remain competitive so that it can continue to attract and retain good educators. 

Salaries for teachers and allied educators like counsellors and student welfare officers were last reviewed in 2015. 

“Even though we are teachers, educators per se, we don’t fall under MOE. So all the perks that come with being a teacher under MOE, we don’t have,” said Joseph, who has been teaching in a SPED school for more than five years. 

The names of teachers interviewed for this story have been changed on their request as they are not authorised to speak to the media. 

Although there were a few nationwide reviews of salaries for SPED teachers, Joseph has yet to benefit from them as his salary falls within the recommended range for teachers with similar experience, he said. 

SPED school teachers that CNA spoke to said their salaries are lower than that of a mainstream school teacher. There is also a difference in pay for teachers who have and do not have a diploma in special education from the National Institute of Education (NIE). 

“The main gripe that most of us have with pay is that we feel like it’s not fair. I think in SPED schools and in mainstream schools, the type of work we do is different, the type of workload we have is also different. But that’s not to say that we’re doing less or we’re doing more than them,” Joseph told CNA.

When she heard about the salary increase for MOE teachers, another SPED teacher Patricia waited for her school leaders to confirm if they would be part of the move. When they said nothing, she accepted that she would not be getting a pay bump. 

“Why are we treated that way? Are we not teachers? Even though we’re not under MOE, we’re still teachers, so why are we not getting that increment as well?

“I definitely hope to see a review of my salary, and I hope that the review is a significant kind, matching up to our job responsibilities … I feel like it must be fair according to the amount of work we put in,” said Patricia. 

“In the first place, the kids that we are getting now are basically the kids that the mainstream school teachers can’t handle. So why do we get paid less for taking the things that they cannot do?” Joseph said. 

When asked about retaining SPED teachers, MP Denise Phua (PAP-Jalan Besar) stressed that ensuring salaries are competitive for the job scope will help to retain staff. 

Ms Phua is the co-founder of Pathlight, a SPED school, and sits on the Government Parliamentary Committee for Education.

“Just as important are (the) meaning of work, work environment, staff benefits, opportunities for training and development,” she told CNA. 

“Any review in compensation and benefits for mainstream school teachers should be made with the special and preschool system in mind. In special schools, critical education partners such as therapists and other allied professionals must be included in any reviews as well.”

Special education schools are funded by MOE, the Ministry of Social and Family Development and the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) depending on their respective programmes, said the union's Mr Lim. 

“There are cases where some teachers at special education schools may be employed or seconded by the MOE, and these teachers will benefit from the salary increment as recently announced by MOE,” he told CNA. 

Most SPED teachers received a career or pay adjustment when MOE laid out new tracks in teaching and leadership for them in 2020, said Rachel, another SPED educator. 

With the framework now in place, new hires now have to go through a contract teaching stint and a longer diploma programme at NIE. At the time, MOE said that salaries would be reviewed from time to time to match teachers’ competencies and to ensure market competitiveness. 

"We are following a lot of MOE guidelines now, so we should be part of the raise," Rachel said. "That’s how I feel because it’s really important to attract and also retain your teachers after you train them.” 

BURNT OUT AND OVERWORKED 

SPED teachers CNA spoke to also said that they are seeing more colleagues quitting and joining the private sector or changing careers, citing gripes with pay, progression as well as workload and burnout. 

“This is an ongoing issue that we’ve been trying to tackle, and it’s becoming even worse now because we’re really struggling with manpower. And the attrition rate is so high that we’re almost not able to keep up,” Joseph said. 

“In the past, we were still able to kind of lose one, then we manage to hire one in the next month or two. But now … we lose like maybe four or five of them and it takes half a year for us to get like one person, two people.” 

This means that teachers also have to take on more responsibilities and administrative matters, he added. 

“For mainstream schools, there’s a lot of marking (for homework, tests and exams), but for us, we don’t do as much marking because our class sizes are smaller."

But SPED teachers have to prepare more of their own educational materials because "we can't just take the textbook and workbook and give it to our students". They also do more planning to customise the lessons depending on their students’ needs, Joseph said. 

Currently, the only SPED schools that offer the national mainstream curriculum are Pathlight School and St Andrew's Mission School. 

Rachel usually spends about five hours in school, and then goes home to prepare lesson plans at home for a few more hours. She also often finds herself working throughout the weekend to prepare for the week ahead. 

“I work even when I’m not at work because there’s really a lot of preparation to do. When you stop teaching is when you start preparing for the next lesson. So work is never-ending,” she added. 

“The moment I wake up, I need to look at my phone, and there’ll be messages coming in from parents asking me stuff. Once I reach school, I need to prepare the lessons of the day.”

Patricia teaches from about 9am to 5pm, and often stays until 8pm to prepare for the next day. Some days, she returns home after that and continues to work until 10pm or 11pm. 

After being with the school for less than five years, she plans to leave her job soon. At her school, many teachers join for a few months and then leave, she said. 

“(A salary increase) will attract people to come here in the first place, but it’s not enough to make everyone stay. 

“There’s a lot of things for us to do day to day, so we are really very worn out every day. At the end of the day, not getting a salary increase is not the only factor why people are leaving.” 

Without a pay increase, Rachel said she expects more teachers in SPED schools will leave to join the private sector, like becoming tuition teachers or joining private pre-schools. 

“You must motivate them, give them incentives, if not I feel like teachers will just leave and go into the private sector, because it’s much better there. Better work-life balance, pay is higher, with better incentives as well.” 

The union has been in discussions with SPED schools to review their non-MOE teachers’ salaries to attract and retain talent, said its representative Mr Lim. 

“Non-MOE teachers from SPED schools also experience the same challenges and have similar concerns as other MOE teachers including multitasking between teaching and handling paperwork, and balancing work and personal lives,” he said. 

“However, there are specific challenges non-MOE teachers undertake, including working with special needs students who require more support."

The union understands that some SPED teachers are increasingly feeling burnt out, and Mr Lim said it wants to work with NCSS to help these teachers and reward them accordingly.

Rachel, who has been with her school for about five years, said a pay raise would help retain teachers to “a certain extent”. 

“You still have rent to pay. We are passionate, if not we wouldn’t be here. But with the rise in the cost of living and everything, it’s time to really review the teachers’ salary.”