TEACHERS (Reduction in administrative workload)

Mr Lau Ping Sum asked the Minister for Education what steps will be taken to reduce the administrative workload of teachers, such as that of computer data entry.

The Minister of State for Education (Dr Aline K. Wong) (for the Minister for Education): Sir, my Ministry recognises the need to alleviate the administrative workload of teachers so that they can devote their time to teaching duties.

Wherever possible, the Ministry has introduced computerisation and office automation in schools. While computerisation may have resulted in data-entry work for some teachers, the overall benefits gained from computerisation outweigh the efforts required. For example, in using the computer to process examination results, the system automates calculations of marks, printing of results, analysis and generation of tables to provide up-to-date information on individual pupil's academic performance.

The Ministry has also provided labour-saving equipment to schools, such as scan-printers, and as I said, computers, and better quality photocopiers. It is also studying other possibilities. Two machines currently being evaluated are the stapling-collating machines and the optical mark readers which have been provided to 14 junior colleges and 10 primary schools respectively. The optical mark readers can be used to automate the marking of examination scripts as well as the capturing of data for computer processing.

The Ministry has also allocated $5,000 per year to each primary school and junior college and allowed secondary schools to tap part of their Edusave grants (up to 20%) for the purchase of administrative support and ancillary services. The Ministry is working with the Singapore Teachers' Union to help schools source for such services. However, the basic problem is the shortage of manpower in Singapore.