MOE Workplan Seminar 2012 - New Way of Recognising Schools

As an ex-teacher, I am very keen to find out the issues that the Minister of Education will address during the annual MOE Workplan Seminar.

I applaud the fact that MOE has recognised that both the School Excellence Model (SEM) and the Masterplan of Awards (MoA) have led to "too much administrative work and fuelled public perception that schools are chasing awards". Yes, Minister Heng is absolutely right. At some point in my career, being part of the school middle management team, I often wondered why schools have to spend hours writing reports and collating evidence for SEM. The hours spent is even longer if the schools are garnering for certain awards. Isn't our time more well-spent if we dedicate it to plan our lessons and school-based programmes to address the learning needs of our pupils?

Hopefully, with the simplification of the framework to achieve and recognise school excellence, schools can minimise the time spent and administrative work involved on reporting and "focus on putting students at the core of their daily work". Only then will the public not perceive that schools are chasing awards at the expense of losing their focus on their core business.

Ideally, there can be a small team of administrators (who are non-teachers) to look into this reporting. Only then will teachers and middle management have more time to focus on the core business of education. I have known several teacher friends who have the potential to be key personnel in their respective schools. However, many have turned down the offers as they find that it is "more fulfilling to teach than to write reports". Nevertheless, it is a good start that MOE has recognised the need for improvement to the current school reporting and recognition system.