The new measures to make teaching more attractive and retentive are out, announced during the Mass Lecture at the Singapore Expo yesterday. [incidentally how many of you were there? And how many of you left after the speech/informal break/lecture? ;p]
Among the measures: [as stated by Straits Times]
- Increase in gratuity bonus
- Higher starting salaries for graduates with pass/pass with merit and dip. holders [I joined one year too late!!!]
- Salary review for mid-career grads
- More opportunities for promotion
- Full-pay sabbaticals for teachers with at least 12 years of experience [I'm so out!]
- Learning-related expenses of $400-$700 to be made claimable [the most flexible, it will be available to everyone]
- More emphasis on staff development [whether this gets translated to the ground level, remains to be seen]
Unfortunately our salaries are already found to be quite competitive with the private sector, so no changes in that direction. Shoot :p
At first glance though, most of the goodies seem to be more for the long-term employees rather than the newbie BTs. Is anyone interested in whether we'll stay beyond our 3/4/5/6 year bonds? And most of the goodies don't focus on the purely material but instead seem directed towards making our life and career development as smooth and varied as possible. Which means you'll only feel the full benefit if you stay for as long as possible.
Hm. What do you guys think?
1 comment:
I agree with you on this.
When I read about the new measures, I immediately thought, "So that's for the recruitment of new teachers and those that have been in the service for at least 12 years. What about those like me? What are "they" doing about retention, instead of recruitment?"
If they only focus on recruitment, and not retention, there's not way they're gonna hit 30k teachers by 2010.
P/S: I've already missed 2 pay adjustments simply because I chose to take the TA right after my A Levels. What message are they sending to us? That we should only take up teaching as late as possible, and not get stuck in a bond too early?
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