Data on Adoption of FWA for Teachers and Ensuring Consistency of Implementation of FWA across Schools

22 Ms He Ting Ru asked the Minister for Education with the implementation of flexible work arrangements (FWA) for teachers (a) whether data is collected on how often teachers are able to work from home; (b) how is this arrangement practicable given the average teacher's workload; and (c) how does the Ministry ensure consistency of implementation across schools.

Mr Desmond Lee: The Ministry of Education (MOE) does not collect such data. The flexible work arrangements vary in approach, length of time and operational needs of schools. MOE's approach to supporting teacher well-being while prioritising students learning needs is to provide guidelines to all schools and give School Leaders the autonomy to make local decisions that meet both operational needs and the well-being needs of teachers. Notwithstanding this, there are channels for staff to provide feedback on the implementation of flexible work arrangements in their schools. This can be through the regular staff engagements surveys that we conduct or through the unions.

MOE encourages School Leaders to support teachers' requests for flexible working arrangements where feasible. This includes reporting later at the start of the school day or leaving earlier before the end of the school day if they have no lessons or duties and flexibility for teachers to attend online meetings at home where feasible. Teachers in most secondary schools, junior colleges and Millenia Institute get to work from home on at least one Home-Based Learning day per term.