Adoption of Work-from-home or Flexible Working Hours for Staff in Schools
Ministry of EducationSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns efforts to implement remote and flexible working arrangements for school staff, as raised by Ms Nadia Ahmad Samdin. Minister Lawrence Wong stated that MOE aligns its workforce policies with national advisories while ensuring staff presence to support student learning. He explained that flexibility, including staggered hours and remote work, is permitted when operationally feasible and physical presence is not required for duties. To facilitate digital collaboration, the ministry provides IT devices and resources, which staff have utilized to implement innovative pedagogies and blended learning. Minister Lawrence Wong noted that these measures have effectively balanced operational needs with employee flexibility, garnering positive responses from staff.
Transcript
42 Ms Nadia Ahmad Samdin asked the Minister for Education in light of the encouragement for employers to continue supporting their employees to work from home or adopt flexible working hours (a) whether there are efforts by all schools to support staff especially administrative staff, to enable remote working, digital collaboration and flexible work; (b) whether this has been effective for schools in their day-to-day operations; and (c) what has been the response to such measures from staff.
Mr Lawrence Wong: MOE aligns our workforce arrangements for teachers and staff with the workforce advisories issued by the Multi-Ministry Taskforce (MTF), MOM and Public Service Division (PSD).
With students attending school as per normal, teachers and school staff need to be physically present to support school operations and to ensure that the learning of our students is not disrupted.
The schools will exercise flexibility on work arrangement where operationally feasible. For example, school staff may be allowed to:
(a) Report or leave at staggered hours if they have no lessons or duties assigned for the start or end of the school day; or
(b) Work from home on a day where they have no physical classes or other assigned duties requiring their physical presence in school.
This arrangement has worked well for our schools and staff in balancing the need to meet the schools’ operating needs while providing flexibility in work arrangement where feasible.
To facilitate new ways of working and digital collaboration in schools, school staff are supported with suitable IT devices and tools, as well as resources on topics such as conducting lessons with students, meetings with colleagues or engaging parents using virtual platforms.
Our staff have generally adapted well to embracing new technologies in their work. For example, there have been many positive stories about our officers employing innovative pedagogies and leveraging digital tools to design and enhance students’ learning experiences, especially in the context of blended learning.