FIVE-DAY WORK WEEK IN SCHOOLS

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FIVE-DAY WORK WEEK IN SCHOOLS: 5.

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan asked the Minister for Education (a) if he will give an update on his Ministry's implementation of the five-day work week in schools; (b) what guidelines have been issued to schools in relation to the CCA activities and the implementation of the five-day work week such that the quality and objectives of the CCA activities will not be compromised.

6.

Mdm Cynthia Phua asked the Minister for Education, in view of the five-day work week, if his Ministry will consider (i) introducing full-day sessions in all schools so that the students can do their co-curricular activities and attend enrichment classes on weekdays and (ii) sharing the physical infrastructure of the schools with the community over the weekends.

Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Sir, may I have your permission to answer Question Nos. 5 and 6 together, please?

Mr Speaker: Yes.

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Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Mr Speaker, Sir, the five-day work week will be implemented in all schools by January 2005. A committee, chaired by the Director of Schools, is examining the implementation issues. MOE has provided schools with guidelines to help them formulate their plans to implement the five-day work week. It has also shared examples of best practices from schools that have already been practising a de facto five-day week.

The Ministry has cautioned that the shift to a five-day work week should not overload students during weekdays. It should also not be at the expense of the breadth of educational experience that we want to provide our students, in academic as well as non-academic areas.

To make this possible, schools will seek to rationalise their programmes and look at how they can be delivered more effectively. It would mean cutting down on less effective or meaningful activities, while preserving or enhancing those that add the most value. Some JCs, for instance, intend to rationalise the number of tests they conduct in JC 1, so that teachers and students will have more time for learning and CCA activities.

Schools will look on Saturday as an opportunity for students to engage in unstructured activities, to reflect and to pursue their interests. Schools will also hold CCAs on weekends where necessary. Serangoon JC, for example, is planning to keep canoeing on Saturdays as students need the longer period of time that Saturdays allow to gain the full benefit of this CCA. Certain CCAs which rely heavily on adult or student volunteers from other schools, like some of the uniformed groups, are also likely to remain on Saturdays.

Overall, our schools are enthusiastic and committed to implementing the five-day work week well. At least 22 schools

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have already implemented a five-day work week. Schools will find sensible and pragmatic ways to do so, so as not to overburden either teacher or student, while preserving the richness of educational experience they provide.

Mdm Cynthia Phua asked about single session schools in this context. All secondary schools and junior colleges are already operating on single session. Around two-thirds or 65% of the primary schools will implement full or partial single session from next year, while the rest will introduce partial single session within the next 10 years.

Mdm Phua also asked about community use of school facilities. Today, there are 310 schools which share their facilities with the community, and various groups and institutions outside school hours. In addition, MOE has been piloting a school field sharing scheme with the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) in seven schools under which the general public can book specially fenced-off school fields for recreational use outside of school hours. MOE is now working with the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) and the SSC to expand the scheme.

Our schools support requests from the community to use their facilities as long as there is no compromise on the students' security and educational experience, which must always take precedence. Even with the implementation of the five-day work week, many students are likely to use school facilities on Saturdays. Nevertheless, it is possible that more school-based facilities could be freed up for public usage on weekends.

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan (Hong Kah): Sir, there are some genuine concerns from parents who work on Saturdays that their children may not use the Saturdays off meaningfully but instead they may get

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into bad company, and I think there are also genuine concerns from teachers along this line too. Would the Ministry ensure that schools could organise at least some activities from time to time for such students, or at least direct them to such meaningful activities?

Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam: I think the Member's point is a fair one. We are not moving from one extreme to another. It is not a black and white situation. Saturdays are good days to organise activities for our students, whether it is CCAs or enrichment or unstructured activities. We have to do so in a way which does not mean a five-and-a-half-day work week for our teachers. So it may mean making better use of student leaders themselves, allowing more opportunity for student leadership. It may mean allowing parents and families to come in and take part in CCAs, for instance, in primary schools. Some of our primary schools are, in fact, doing this very successfully. It achieves both family bonding as well as gets the kids involved in something healthy and allows them to use their energies well. So schools will work these things out, making sure we do not overburden the teachers but using Saturdays to stretch our kids a little, engage them in something purposeful.

Mdm Cynthia Phua (Aljunied): Would the Minister consider full-day school for our primary schools? Currently, what happens is that parents have to pay extra transport cost to and from school because most of these primary school kids are having enrichment classes as well as remedial classes in the afternoon, and this is on top of the parents having to pay for the before-and-after school care for their children. Since it is going to be a five-day work week, would the Minister seriously consider having a single session for primary school children as well?

Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Let me, first, say that the overall scale of

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academic work, as well as non-academic work, is less intensive in primary schools compared to secondary schools and JCs. And particularly for our lower primary kids, there is not a very strong case to extend them in school throughout the day. They tire more easily. They require a little more parental supervision and home attention. Not many parents will favour a full day school for lower primary kids. But we are moving towards partial single session so as to allow, especially the upper primary kids - primary 3 to primary 6 - to have the space in the afternoons to engage in various school programmes, be it CCA or learning activities of one form or another. I think this is a pragmatic solution. The lower primary kids will occasionally do the same, but it is less frequent and less intensive.

Moving all our primary schools to single session will be very expensive as well. It means building 40 more schools, which means $800 million. And I think we can use those resources much more effectively in other areas, especially in our continual efforts to improve the quality of the teaching profession - hire more teachers, add more quality educational programmes, allow schools to build niches of excellence.

Mdm Halimah Yacob: Sir, I have received feedback from some teachers who are concerned that they may not be able to enjoy this five-day week, because I think implementation has been very much left with individual principals in the schools. My question is: what will the Ministry do to ensure compliance at the individual school level? When will this five-day week be implemented in schools?

Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Sir, we are quite mindful of that. The basic precept of moving towards a five-day work week is that our teachers, like other civil servants, will work what I might call

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a five-day equivalent week. But like in other professions, sometimes you have to work on a Saturday, and many teachers would want to do so for particular reasons. But it should not be the norm, and, in general, a five-day equivalent work week should prevail. So schools are working this out. Schools will find different ways of spreading the responsibilities of their teachers. There will be some teachers who will be a little more engaged than others on Saturdays because of the nature of the activity they are supervising. And those teachers will find that they will have lesser duties during the work week. I will leave it to schools to work out. There are several schools where I found that, in fact, a five-day week with very little activity on Saturday is workable. It depends on the nature of their activities and the profile of their students and CCA activities. So we will bear that in mind as one of our key precepts as we go forward.

Mdm Ho Geok Choo: Sir, I have two supplementary questions for the Minister. Following an earlier supplementary question, with regard to involvement in unstructured activities, I think, inevitably, the teaching staff as well as non-teaching staff may be involved if they are required to help to organise some of these ad hoc activities on Saturdays. In the event of this, how would the teaching and non-teaching staff be compensated?

My second question is: how can MOE more actively promote a partnership of school CCAs with the community so as to better reinforce the sharing of infrastructure facilities?

Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Sir, on her first question, I am not keen to encourage a culture where people clock in and clock out with some precision. Teaching is a labour of love in many ways. It requires commitment. It is a challenging profession, but you cannot mark exactly when you clock in and clock

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out. It is much like many other professions. If occasionally a teacher has to do something on a Saturday because it is an activity of importance to the school - they might want the students to benefit from extra CCA training or special enrichment activity - I would not be keen to have to work out schemes of compensation. I think these things can be dealt with sensibly in the context of the school where everyone shares in the mission and shares in the objective of the school, so that teachers who put in extra effort are recognised. Sometimes they might be given time off and, at other times, their duties and responsibilities in other areas might be reduced. This is what school leadership is about. So working out a Ministry scheme would not be the right approach.

Her second question is on the community's use of facilities. It is actually proceeding quite well. We can scale it up. I think this scheme that we are working out now with MCYS and the Singapore Sports Council is a promising one. We are piloting seven schools. It is working quite well. So let us take that forward. I do not see major systemic impediments to this. It is a practical issue. We could deal with security and we have got to ensure that there is absolutely no compromise on our students' educational experience - the fact that they have got to have those facilities available to them when the school decides they are necessary.

Mdm Ho Geok Choo: Sir, with regard to the Minister's answer that the philosophy of teaching is a service of love, I certainly support. I am just wondering whether the Minister has gotten the support and understanding of the teachers' union in this respect.

Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Sir, it is still early days. We are working this out. We have a committee chaired by the Director of Schools, and schools are currently working out their plans for

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implementation. The starting position is one of shifting activities from Saturday into the weekdays. But I do not want to constrain schools at this point from having some use of Saturdays for certain activities where they think practical. Let us see what they come up with. The Ministry will have a look at their plans and ensure that the principle of not over burdening teachers and ensuring that teachers have a five-day equivalent work week is maintained.