TEACHERS (Resignation and retirement)

Mr Goh Choon Kang asked the Minister for Education (i) how many primary, secondary school and junior college teachers have resigned, (ii) how many such teachers have retired, and (iii) how many foreign teachers have been recruited to fill the vacancies in the last five years since 1995 and up to the first half of this year, giving breakdown figures for each year.

The Minister for Education (RAdm Teo Chee Hean): Mr Speaker, Sir, the resignation rate in the Education Service has been stable at a rate of 2% to 3% over the last five years. In absolute terms, the number of resignations of trained teachers has dropped from 576 resignations in 1995 to 465 in 1999. For the first half of this year, there were 451 resignations.

In terms of retirement, the numbers have increased in the last five years from 414 in 1995 to 755 in 1999. In the first half of 2000, there were 463 retirements. The number of retirements has been increasing because a significant portion of our education service are aged 50 and up.

To supplement our pool of local teachers, the Ministry has been tapping on the external source of foreign teachers. The number of foreign teachers the Ministry had recruited from 1995-1999 ranged from 47 to 71 and in the first half of 2000, 92 foreign teachers were appointed.

Mr Goh Choon Kang (Marine Parade): Sir, can I ask the Minister, out of the 70 to 90-odd foreign teachers recruited each year, how many of them are Chinese Language (CL) teachers?

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: Of the 47 to 71 teachers recruited each year from 1995 to 1999 and of the 92 recruited in 2000, quite a good number are CL teachers.