Hats off to teachers in neighbourhood schools

It is no secret that a teacher’s life in a non-elite school is challenging. Pupils come from diverse and often less privileged backgrounds, making classroom management and student engagements more arduous.

It is not uncommon to hear friends in the teaching service mention how transferring to a premier school provides relatively quick success in helping pupils achieve their learning outcomes, which also increases the prospects of career progression.

Tomorrow is Teachers’ Day, and I thank the teachers who stayed on, gave up lucrative job offers for extra school hours with weaker pupils, and changed countless lives in the process. They bring out the best in all of us.

As a former relief teacher in a non-elite school, I felt first-hand the sacrifices they made.

For starters, when I told people the name of the school I was teaching at, I was always asked: “Why not go to a better school?”

Somehow, my peers and relatives perceived that only less qualified teachers staffed non-elite schools, but nothing could be further from the truth. Most of my former colleagues stayed on in this environment out of grit and dedication to their pupils.

It was not surprising to see teachers come in at 6am and leave late in the evening on a daily basis.

Besides giving remedial lessons, teachers in neighbourhood schools often stand in as parental figures and role models for children from less functional families.

I cannot forget the time when a teacher said to me that she had never regretted spending 30 years teaching and supporting these children.

Her only gripe was that teachers like her were not “rewarded” proportionally for prioritising working with pupils and partnering with parents over extraneous committee duties, which her supervisors prized as key performance indicators.

Her frustration was not an indictment of the system, but stemmed from a worry that the fundamental, needful task of student engagement was eclipsed by deliverables that deviated from what she believed was the heart of teaching.

To the many competent, determined and selfless teachers, Happy Teachers’ Day.