Review of Salary and Benefits for Educators and Staff in Mainstream Schools, Preschools and Special Education Schools

2 Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng asked the Minister for Education when and how are salary scale and benefit reviews conducted and recommended for (i) educators from mainstream schools, preschools and special education schools and (ii) other staff such as education psychologists, job coach therapists and school leaders serving in these education institutions.

The Minister for Education (Mr Chan Chun Sing): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, MOE periodically reviews the salaries of officers in MOE schemes of service and, in consultation with the Public Service Division, considers making appropriate adjustments to ensure that their overall salary packages remain market competitive.

Salary adjustments take into consideration the size of the salary gaps compared to market benchmarks. Generally, larger adjustments are made when the gap with the market benchmarks is wider. This is in line with the principle that Civil Service salaries should keep pace with but not lead the market.

MOE recently announced salary adjustments for all eligible Education Officers (EOs), Allied Educators (AEDs) and MOE Kindergarten Educators (MKEs), which took effect on 1 October 2022. These adjustments also apply to MOE staff seconded to other agencies.

ECDA is separately conducting a salary review for Early Childhood educators in government-supported preschools to ensure that their salaries are commensurate with their contributions and professional skills. The salary review is expected to be completed by end 2022 and ECDA will work with government-supported operators to implement the changes from 2023 onwards.

Special Education (SPED) schools are run by Social Service Agencies (SSAs). While SPED schools receive full funding, SSAs retain substantial autonomy in HR practices, including how they compensate SPED school staff.

Nevertheless, MOE, in our role in overseeing the SPED sector, works closely with and supports the SSAs to ensure that salaries for SPED teachers remain competitive through periodic compensation reviews. In 2018, salaries were reviewed together with the National Council of Social Service. In 2020, salaries were again reviewed with the introduction of the Journeys of Excellence Package. This Journeys package contains several complementary initiatives to raise the quality and professionalism of the SPED teaching profession by strengthening their competencies, expertise and career progression. Additional funding is provided for manpower costs in two tranches – the first has been implemented in 2021 and the second is planned for 2024. MOE will continue to work with SSAs so that our SPED teachers have good career progression and updated salary guidelines.

For non-teaching SPED school staff such as psychologists, the SSAs take reference from the NCSS sector salary guidelines for different professions. The guidelines are updated annually.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Ms Denise Phua.

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng (Jalan Besar): I thank the Minister for his comprehensive reply. Let me declare that I am a volunteer at several people sector charities and helping out in special schools as well.

Recently, when the announcement for MOE teachers or Education Officers was made, it created quite a bit of ripple amongst the special education sector and also in the rest of the people sector where organisations take in students who graduate from the special schools. When announcements, such as this, are made unilaterally, it does affect the others. Sometimes, the approach or the methodology by which these compensation reviews are made, are either not known or perhaps could be missed out when the original announcements were made.

I think it is always good and would MOE consider that when it makes announcements of such nature, especially in terms of compensation, that it be not announced unilaterally and that mention be made of the rest of the sector who are also serving the children, the young people or the older people of Singapore in education? So, that is one, that announcements will also make some mention of the rest of the service providers.

Number two, I would like MOE to consider and communicate to the SSAs – either special schools or disability organisations – the philosophy by which their salaries are computed or decided upon. Because for some of the positions – such as the educators, psychologists, therapists and so forth – both sectors, the people and public sectors, are recruiting from the same pool. The competitiveness is quite important because you want to serve such persons throughout their lifespan. So, the philosophy is quite important because they could be recruiting from the same pool. So, I would appreciate that MOE would consider some of what I have shared.

Mr Chan Chun Sing: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, to the first comment by Ms Denise Phua, yes, indeed, Public Service Division and MOE, as part of the wider service, regularly review the salary scales for different professions. I would say that, in general, we do this progressively, systematically and continuously. The reason that we do not announce everything at one go is because we do the work in stages. But every time we announce a change in one particular profession, we will certainly take into account the other professions to make sure that the relativities are maintained, both within the sector and also beyond the sector, with other professions.

On the second comment, we will continue to share our methodologies of how this is done in the public sector with the people sector. The methodology of how we compute the salaries and the remuneration packages – all this is not a secret. We do it openly and there is an open methodology of how we do it. We will be very happy to share this with the rest of the SSAs.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Mr Leong Mun Wai.

Mr Leong Mun Wai (Non-Constituency Member): Thank you, Sir. It is important that in every sector in the economy, we must allocate some of our top talents. So, even in preschools and SPED schools, are we allocating our top talents? For example, is the Public Service Commission (PSC) offering scholarships to allow some of our top talents to be trained in those areas so that, in the future, they can lead the sectors?

Secondly, in the long run, we must also ensure that every sector has a fair salary structure. For example, we cannot assume that the preschool teachers are of a lower level than the teachers in the Junior Colleges. So, in the long run, we must align the competencies, we must make sure that we recognise the competency level in every of these sectors and remunerate them accordingly. We have heard a lot of stories that overseas, there are Masters and PhD holders becoming teachers of preschools, for example.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Sorry, Mr Leong Mun Wai, are you asking a question or are you —

Mr Leong Mun Wai: Sir, I am asking the question whether there are plans in the future that will ensure that these remuneration packages for preschools and special education areas will continue to improve.

Mr Christopher de Souza: Minister Chan Chun Sing.

Mr Chan Chun Sing: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, to Mr Leong's first comment, yes, indeed, first of all, we try to get a fair share of talent into the Public Service. Within the Public Service, we will spread the talent across different agencies and different professional areas to make sure that all sectors have a fair share of talent. So, that we have done.

Specific to Mr Leong Mun Wai's question, Mr Leong might want to know or may already know that actually when I was in the Ministry of Social and Family Development, we have a talent development scheme working with the SSAs. In fact, one of the schemes that we started many years ago was the Sun Ray Scheme where we develop top talent or capable people and rotate them across agencies to give them exposure beyond the agencies because my personal belief is that we do not develop people within each agency alone in a stovepipe. Our aim is to make sure that they get a broader exposure so that the good ideas can spread around faster and the whole sector itself can benefit. So, we have been doing that and we will continue to do that.

On Mr Leong Mun Wai's second point about the salary structure, indeed, that is also what we have always been doing to make sure that every sector is compensated competitively. Of course, we do not take compensation as the only reason to help people stay in the sector. It is also about career development, their route of advancement, the working environment and so forth.

But I would just like to raise one nuanced point. I think we should be very careful about remunerating people based on credentials. In fact, in the whole economy, we are encouraging people to remunerate people based on their skills, capabilities and not just based on their credentials. So, whether educators have Masters, PhD or basic degree or diploma, I think we need to look at them, but we also need to look beyond that and look at the kind of skillsets that people have and the kind of contributions that people have made. I would not say that just because someone has a Masters, therefore, they will obviously be paid more than someone who might be very experienced in the sector itself.

We look at it holistically. We look at some of the prior training that our people have, the contributions that they are making in the sector and the kind of experiences that they have. I think these are all the factors that will help us to make a remuneration package that is both fair and competitive.