CHINESE LANGUAGE TEACHERS

Mr Goh Choon Kang asked the Minister for Education, from 1995 to the first ten months of 2000 (a) how many primary, secondary school and junior college Chinese Language teachers have resigned; (b) how many of such teachers have retired; and (c) how many foreign teachers have been recruited to fill the vacancies, giving breakdown figures for each year.

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: Resignations

The resignation rate of Chinese Language teachers ranged from 1.5% to 2.6% over the last 5 years. This is comparable to the overall resignation rate of between 2% and 3% in the Education Service. Please refer to Table 1.

Retirements

Please refer to Table 2. Annual retirement figures for Chinese Language teachers ranged from 158 to 235 over the last 5 years. In the first 10 months of this year, 163 Chinese teachers retired. Due to the age profile of Chinese Language teachers in primary schools, the percentage of retirement among Chinese Language teachers in primary schools is higher than the corresponding percentage for secondary schools and Junior Colleges/Centralised Institutes.

Foreign Recruitment

Please refer to Table 3. We are tapping on overseas recruitment to supplement to a certain extent our pool of local Chinese Language teachers. The number of Chinese Language teachers recruited overseas ranged from 33 in 1998 to 81 for the first 10 months of 2000.

Education Statistics Percentages quoted are based on the stock of Chinese Language teachers in that category for the particular year. Table 1: Number of Chinese Language Teachers Who Resigned, 1995-2000 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000* Primary 29 27 31 43 57 51 (1.4%) (1.3%) (1.5%) (2.1%) (2.6%) (2.5%) Secondary 22 18 20 21 24 21 (2.6%) (2.0%) (2.1%) (2.1%) (2.4%) (1.8%) JC/CI 2 2 1 2 9 7 (1.0%) (0.9%) (0.5%) (0.9%) (3.8%) (3.1%) Total 53 47 52 66 90 79 (1.7%) (1.5%) (1.5%) (2.5%) (2.6%) (2.2%) * As at 31st October 2000. Table 2: Number of Chinese Language Teachers Who Retired, 1995-2000 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000* Primary 117 139 177 173 140 116 (5.5%) (6.6%) (8.4%) (8.3%) (6.3%) (5.6%) Secondary 41 46 49 61 41 44 (4.9%) (5.0%) (5.2%) (6.1%) (4.1%) (3.7%) JC/CI 0 5 8 1 1 3 (0.0%) (2.3%) (3.6%) (0.5%) (0.4%) (1.3%) Total 158 190 234 235 182 163 (5.0%) (5.9%) (7.1%) (7.1%) (5.2%) (4.7%) * As at 31st October 2000. Table 3: Number of Foreign Teachers Recruited To Teach Chinese Language, 1995-2000 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000* Primary 0 0 0 14 0 2 Secondary 0 0 0 19 50 74 JC/CI 0 0 0 0 12 5 Total 0 0 0 33 62 81 * As at 31st October 2000.