Trained Teacher Counsellors Employed in Schools

6 Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked the Minister for Education for each year in the past five years (a) what is the number of teacher counsellors employed in schools in Singapore; (b) what is the average percentage of teachers who are teacher counsellors in each school; and (c) how many hours of counselling training do these teachers undergo.

The Second Minister for Education (Dr Mohamad Maliki Bin Osman) (for the Minister for Education): Mr Speaker, teacher counsellors are part of an ecosystem of tiered support for our students, which includes the school counsellors, community resources, other teachers, peers and parents. Working together, they provide a caring environment for our students to grow and thrive.

For all students, in addition to imparting academic content, teachers impart important habits and skills to strengthen our students' socio-emotional well-being and resilience. This is done through lessons and regular interactions with students. Among teachers, form teachers play a key role in supporting students' well-being and growth through building a positive class community. Schools have also put in place peer support networks to enable students to offer socio-emotional support to one another.

Students who require more specialised counselling support are attended to by trained school counsellors beyond the peer support and teacher counsellor support frameworks. Every school has one to two school counsellors, who can be augmented by flexi-adjunct school counsellors, depending on the needs of the school. Students who require more specialised interventions are referred to health professionals and community resources like REACH and Family Service Centres.

Teacher counsellors supplement counselling support in schools by taking on a few less complex cases or support programmes that promote student well-being. There are close to 800 teacher counsellors deployed in our schools today. Teacher counsellors undergo relevant training to better support their students, such as a part-time Certificate in School Counselling course and other short courses, such as a one-day course on Psychological First Aid. To manage their workload, teacher counsellors have reduced teaching load or are offloaded from other school duties.

We also believe that parents play a key role in helping their children acquire self-management skills, take responsibility for their actions and bounce back from setbacks. Schools will continue to work closely with parents to develop their children's social and emotional competencies, including through our Parent Support Groups.

Mr Speaker: Mr Louis Ng.

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang (Nee Soon): Sir, I thank the Second Minister for the reply. I think the Second Minister gave the number of teacher counsellors for all the schools. But could I just ask for part (b) of my question on what percentage of teachers in each school are teacher counsellors?

Second, it is an important point that a lot of counsellors tell me that to be a counsellor, they require at least a Master's degree in counselling, because it is difficult work and requires specialised training. So, could I ask again whether we are setting our teachers up for failure by asking them to do even basic counselling work? The Second Minister mentioned maybe a one-day training; is there sufficient training for these teachers to be able to carry out this specialised work?

Third, it really is also what I have been pushing for. The teachers are overworked. Is it really needed for them to do this extra work, or could the Ministry of Education (MOE) set aside some funding to hire more school counsellors who are able to help the students better and essentially help the teachers as well?

Dr Mohamad Maliki Bin Osman: Sir, on the question of the proportion, it varies from different schools. As I have mentioned earlier, there are about 800 teacher counsellors who are spread out to all our schools. So, it is hard to say what is the percentage across all the different schools. But suffice to say, first, I want to reiterate the distinction between school counsellors and teacher counsellors.

The one that Mr Louis Ng talked about in terms of requiring specialised training, for example, Master's degree in counselling, they are our school counsellors. They are the ones who will do the real counselling work for the cases which are more complicated, more complex, that require more intervention. And most of the cases in schools are handled by the school counsellors. And the school counsellors do not do the teaching. They just do the counselling work.

But the question that Mr Ng asked is about teacher counsellors. The teacher counsellors augment the work of the school counsellors. And that is the reason why the training is on psychological first aid; they are the ones who help the less complex cases. They are the ones who, when the school or the class form teachers identify a student who is manifesting some challenges, they are referred to the teacher counsellors and the teacher counsellors will try to support and help them. And they are less complex cases.

So, the teacher counsellors are not expected to do the kind of counselling that require Master's level qualification. They are asked to support less complex cases. And when we talk about the teacher counsellors, I just want to highlight that when we identify the teachers, we do not just identify whoever that we think, "Oh, you should do it and the school needs these teachers". We identify teachers who are suitable and have interest. They, first, must have the interest to want to do more than just teaching and a predisposition to provide counselling, intervention support, as well as those with some prior counselling experience and training. There are some teachers who were former social workers. So, they already have got some training in counselling experience.

Some teachers who came from the social service sector do have some experience already and we ask them whether they are prepared to do so. So, they are teachers who have already had some background. They take on the role and they are very committed and we know they have done a lot of work.

Sir, on the workload of teacher counsellors, I want to again make the distinction between the teacher counsellors and the school counsellors. The school counsellors are the professionals who have been recruited by MOE to deal with the more challenging counselling cases. Within the school system, as I have mentioned previously, we have structures and systems in place to ensure a manageable workload for all our staff. For instance, the Teacher Work Management Framework guides schools in managing teachers' workload and ensuring that teachers' well-being are taken care of. This includes recommending off-loading practices for teacher counsellors where, depending on the amount of time that they spend a week on their counselling duties, their workload is correspondingly reduced.

So, for example, teaching fewer classes or taking less co-curricular activities or committee duties. So, if you are a teacher counsellor, depending on how much counselling you are doing, you are off-loaded from other teaching duties; just to be fair to the teachers. And the school leaders are given the guideline within this framework to be able to help the teachers.

So, besides implementing these off-loading provisions, school leaders also adopt a holistic approach in deploying teacher counsellors to ensure that their work is sustainable. This takes into consideration factors, such as the nature of the subject that they teach, the frequency and intensity of the teacher counsellors' marking load, including class sizes, level, streams assigned and/or student profiles.

So, every school has got its school staff developer, and this school staff developer or designated key personnel would monitor and track the training and deployment of teacher counsellors in the school. So, I want to assure Mr Louis Ng that we know the teachers have done a lot of work and they continue to do a lot of work. We recognise that; we appreciate it. We are fully aware of the amount of work they have put in. Some have gone beyond the call of duty in doing so.

We will do our best within the school system and not every school is the same because the needs of the schools differ. And with the framework and guidelines we have given the school leaders, we hope the school leaders will be able to be fair to all the teachers within the school manpower. And we also hope that if teachers who feel that they are being loaded with more than what they can handle can go to the school staff developer in the school, talk to the school leaders and manage the workload within the construct of the team in the school.

11.30 am

Mr Speaker: Order. End of Question Time. Introduction of Government Bills.

[Pursuant to Standing Order No 22(3), provided that Members had not asked for questions standing in their names to be postponed to a later Sitting day or withdrawn, written answers to questions not reached by the end of Question Time are reproduced in the Appendix.]