POV: Want to help teachers? A big part lies in not outsourcing parenting work to them

To be a teacher these days, you need to do more than just teach.

Teachers also act as administrative staff, IT personnel, counsellors, co-curricular activity (CCA) leaders, and event organisers, to name a few.

This means weekends often seem more like weekdays to some teachers, who have to sacrifice personal time to catch up with work.

For some teachers, the biggest source of work and stress come from students’ parents, with expectations of them to act as “surrogate parents” and take on extra duties like reporting when students leave school grounds.

Teachers say how parents regard them is partly the reason why some students behave disrespectfully in school to the educators.

These woes of educators have come under the spotlight in the weeks leading up to Teachers’ Day this year, which were captured in TODAY’s recent Big Read feature.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) says teacher attrition rates have been “relatively low and stable” at between two and three per cent “over the last few years”.

Much effort has been made by the ministry to help teachers, and new measures are constantly rolled out, but the issue remains for many.

So what can we do to prevent good and experienced teachers from leaving?

Based on my interviews with teachers and experts for the feature, a key factor is the mismatch in public expectations of what a teacher’s role should be, and in turn, the scope of their work.

One thing is clear — it would help greatly if parents do not outsource parenting to teachers, expecting them to act as babysitters for children.

That means education and discipline need to be taught effectively not just in school, but at home too.

To do so, parents need to show respect towards the teaching profession even at home, so that it trickles down to the students into how they behave at school.

Teachers told TODAY that some parents have gone too far, like requesting for a year’s curriculum of one subject catered to a single child in the school.

A former junior college teacher also recalled a parent asking if their child was sexually active, which bewildered her.

Also, MOE and school leaders should better communicate with parents on teacher’s job scopes, protecting them from the occasional ridiculous demands from some parents.

The MOE ranking system — which pits teachers against their peers in terms of performance — should then be adjusted to also better reflect the role they should play in schools.

This would set in stone the realistic expectations among all of a teacher’s role, and could make their workload and pressure more manageable.

And this could allow teachers to do what they do best, teach.