MOE screw-up over paying “excess bonus” to teachers
September 16th, 2009 | 
Author: From our Correspondent
A “system error” caused a huge chunk of bonus payout to be credited to 200 new teachers who graduated from the National Institute of Education last year!
The Ministry of Education is now demanding the affected teachers repay them the excess bonus by the end of year much to their chagrin.
A 25-year-old teacher, who has to return $2,000, said: ‘Although I can afford to pay the sum back, it’s still very painful. And what about those who have loans to pay?’
Another teacher, who has to return $2,700, said: ‘It’s been six months and they expect people to just return a lump sum like that? I’m being penalised for a mistake I didn’t make.’
Many were also disappointed at what they said was the lack of a proper explanation from the ministry.
It is not known who made the mistake or how it occurred. The sum wrongly paid is expected to be around $400,000 based on the number of teachers affected and their monthly salaries.
According to a recent report released by the World Economic Forum, while the Singapore government had spent meagrely on Primary education (109th), we have produced the 3rd best in terms of quality
Our Singapore teachers are overworked and underpaid. Surely MOE should not begrudge them an additional $2,000 per head as a reward for their hard work?
Though it is technically right for MOE to request for a refund of the bonuses wrongly paid out, it will win much goodwill and applause from the teaching community if it has been sensitive and tactful enough to reduce the amount to be repaid or waive it off together.
After, it was yet another “honest mistake” and they should be taught a proper lesson to serve as a reminder to them not to repeat it again.
$400,000 is really peanuts for a government which is willing to splurge $10 million dollars in 3 days to host the APEC meetings and less than a quarter of the Education Minister’s annual salary.
A little generosity will go a long way towards winning the hearts and minds of the civil servants.
Times are bad and some teachers had already spent the bonus. To expect them to cough out nearly a month of their salaries under present circumstances to no fault of theirs is pretty unreasonable.
Posted in Editorial
PAP has become more complacent now. Mas Salamat, TH, MOE…
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Teachers are overpaid and under worked.
They have super long holidays and work half day.
Many teachers can be found clubbing or cheong.
Many teachers have side lines.
Many teachers do stock trading during office hours.
Many teachers draw more than 5-6k a month. Iron lice bowl. Who don wan.
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“Many teachers have side lines.”
“Many teachers brainwash the student into voting for incumbent”
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Stupid questions time:
1. Who made this blunder?
2. Will the blunderer be punished for it, or will it be “let’s move on” as usual?
3. Will the grassroots leaders of North-West CDC be made to pay back their 8 months bonus?
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Honest mistake – rectification – that is appropriate.
Dishonest Teacher – complain about returning the money – spending money that is not belonging to them – this is atrocious.
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Hi admin
You wrote
“$400,000 is really peanuts for a government which is willing to splurge $10 million dollars in 3 days to host the APEC meetings and less than a quarter of the Education Minister’s annual salary.”
BTW the splurge is not $10m but $100m. Well, for that sum of $100m, I would really call that a splurge.
$100m for Apec meetings
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_424090.html
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First world country, first class civil service, honest mistakes, no need to be accountable for the mistakes. Just asked them to pay back the money and case closed. This seems to be the case… Bravo.
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Teeechars – teachers from which country are u talking abt? My hubby is a teacher. He leaves home every day 6.30am and comes home 7pm. Event then after dinner he still has work to do. Of the school hols, only 1 week in June and 2 weeks in Nov/Dec is actual holidays, the rest taken up giving extra classes, meetings, workshops etc.
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the honesty of these teachers are in suspect. What kind of role models are they to students?
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So if I forgotten to pay my income tax, down payment, fines, I won’t be liable for any criminal charge on the context of honest mistake?
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And they wonder why so many young teachers are not renewing their contracts. Walk into any school, you’d find older teachers (over 40) and very young teachers (fresh grads). Very rarely will you find teachers in their 30s. Why? Cos most of them leave after their initial contract is up. Thanks to all these blunders by the MOE.
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To anonymous
Teeechars – teachers from which country are u talking abt? My hubby is a teacher. He leaves home every day 6.30am and comes home 7pm. Event then after dinner he still has work to do. Of the school hols, only 1 week in June and 2 weeks in Nov/Dec is actual holidays, the rest taken up giving extra classes, meetings, workshops etc.
You better check your husband. I used to be from MOE. Many teachers are NOT working that sort of time.
Leaving home 6:30am and comes home 7pm is DAMN heng already. Do you know many people do not reach home until 11pm.
Many young women teachers in their late 20s and 30s cheong. It is an open news.
Your husband is an under achiever. Many teachers do not do what you said. Many in Senior positions go for tour around the region. What is senior? Many girls in their late 20s or mid 30s are already senior teachers.
By the way, I know many teachers earn more in giving tuition than their teaching job.
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And to anonymous
So, you did not complain about the fact your hubby draw 5-6k per month? By industry context, it is damn overpaid for a half day job, with 3 months holidays per year.
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Teeechars, get your facts right and wake up to the real world.
I’m a ex-MOE teacher and the workload is totally horrendous, with overbearing management.
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1. Everyone makes mistakes – it is ok, but need to find out what happened and how not to make the same mistake again.
2. Given the context are teachers in the educational industry – MOE should not ask for the money back but rather deduct from next FY salaries or payment.
Paying back lump sum will balance the books but will leave a bitter taste in the toungue of these teachers.
3. Yes, only older (mid 40s) or fresh grads – are teachers, most of the capable teachers in their 30s have borken their contracts and left for greener pastures in the private sectors.
MOE needs to note this demographic shift and ask itself ” why is this happening and how to address it?”
4. Teachers are a special lot – like fireman, policeman and religious leaders – I almost would have to say “you need to be called into this profession” – you actually need to love your profession and know it is NOT for the money, IT CANNOT BE JUST A JOB”
5. I agree that MOE has more or less lost a lot of its focus and core competence over the years….the cracks are showing in the cirriculum (the aware saga) as well as the quality of its teaching staff…
IT IS ABOUT THE KIDS…IT IS ABOUT WHAT THEY WILL KNOW AND WHAT THEY WILL BELIEVE IN
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What’s wrong with demanding the excess to be paid back from the teachers involved? You mean if moe under pay them, they have no right to demand back their rightful payment? Can’t the teachers recognise the error in the 1st place, or they chose to keep mum and spend the money??? NIE = No Intergrity Educators?
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It’s clear as daylight… MOE has no regard for the staff.
After all, like any profession, how difficult is it to get some FTs to do the job? FTs seems to be the answer to all our problems… Malulah, Singapura…
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To Teechars,
“You better check your husband. I used to be from MOE. Many teachers are NOT working that sort of time…”
Are you sure you were from the MOE? Or are you just oblivious to the plight of the overworked teachers in MOE?
Which school were you from? maybe i can ask my spouse to ask for posting to that school cos it seems from your experience, teachers are enjoying life in your school.
“Teachers are overpaid and under worked”
Can you please present your facts? It sounds a lot like a generalised statement from someone who doesn’t know how the teachers in school work like.
“They have super long holidays and work half day”
Again another uninformed statement. Sure they may have holidays but up to 2 weeks of those holidays are taken up for remedial lessons, CCAs, meetings and many other ad-hoc admin matters. Sometimes it is not even 1 week worth of holidays as even the time spent at home is used for lesson planning and homework marking and other admin matters.
The sad part is teachers can’t take leave on dates they see fit as we can in the non-teaching sectors. They are simply stuck with June and December. to go spend whatever of their free time is left. and don’t count the 1 week holidays cos they still have to go to school.
They don’t work half a day. Their curriculum time with the students in class may be half a day, but they still have to do markings, lesson plannings, meetings, CCAs, events, talk to parents, remedial lessons, attend to any emergencies tht students may have etc etc…that list is non-exhaustive. I believe it when some say that teachers come home late at night even up to 11pm.
“Many teachers can be found clubbing or cheong”
I understand that the younger ones do, but why? is it a crime for teachers to go it let all out at the end of the day?
“Many teachers have side lines”
Are you referring to tuition? Many teachers do that. That is in order to supplement their already low income, personally my wife do give out tuition at centres like Mendaki and CDAC. This is more out of service to the community cos she can earn twice more if she gives private tuitioning. Even then MOE have strict guidelines with regards to how many hours of tuition you can give in a week.
“Many teachers do stock trading during office hours”
Again i ask from which school were you from? cos it seems from your experience the teachers in your school seem to be very free.
“Many teachers draw more than 5-6k a month. Iron lice bowl. Who don wan”
That might be the average wage of teachers holding key positions like the HODs but that definitely is not the norm for BTs and even for experienced teachers. Again don’t make sweeping generalised statements.
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Teeechars,
Obviously u were not a teacher even if u were from MOE! U must have been admin staff… Teachers have a tremendously difficult job to do. Not only are we responsible for the children under our care, we have to deal with paperwork and parents!
There is no such thing as 3 months holidays! If we’re lucky we get 1 week in June and 2 weeks in December. That’s our leave cos unlike other jobs, teachers do NOT have annual leave.
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Hi Teeechars,
To your assertions that “teachers are overpaid and underwork”, have you ever been a teacher before, or do you have close contacts, or personally know any teachers to make such assumptions?
I’m not a teacher myself, but I’ve been working as a lab tech for a neighborhood school in the past and from what I see, the teachers spend most of their holiday giving extra lessons for the students, arranging excursions, CCAs, etc. They are not really resting.
Work half day? My wife’s mum is a teacher, and even at the age of 58 she stays up till 2-3a.m marking the students’ assignments, projects etc. She has to get to school by 6am in the morning.
And by the way, TEACHERS HAVE NO ANNUAL Leave, Zilch, Zero; unlike many other professions in the private sector.
In fact, teachers in Singapore are badly overworked, having to manage class, take CCAs, etc. In most developed countries, teachers only TEACH. The CCAs are handled by professional coaches on the school’s expenses.
Teachers can be found clubbing or cheong-ing? That’s down to the person, if you like clubbing or cheonging it doesn’t matter if you are a teacher, office worker, stock broker, kopi tiam assistance, salesperson, insurance agent, lawyer etc. So your point is totally irrelevant.
Side lines? You mean like giving private tuition? If they are paid so damn well they don’t have to do it right?
Stock trading during office hours? Do you know that online stock trading can only be performed for US, and they only start during 10pm (our time)? Proves you are talking out of your ass.
Go ask around and show me that “most teachers” earn 5-6K per month. If that’s the case their monthly bonus won’t be around 2K-3K as mentioned in the article above. If anything, it’s probably the very senior teachers or teachers in senior positions who earns this figure. Which is still very much lesser than their counter-parts in the private sector.
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call it my own opinion, but teechars seems to have a very negative outlook on teachers,maybe after having an especially bad experience in his education? but the truth does remain that teaching is an incredibly taxing and tiring job.kudos to teachers for having the perseverance and determination to continue in their field. the sad part about singapore is that many jobs are underestimated and deemed “easy” or “overpaid”, not bothering to get their facts right. in fact many of teechars arguments also do not even seem valid, and merely seems like the ramblings of a petty man.
in context of the article, i do not find it ridiculous that some teachers grumble for having to give back their bonus’s. while some of the teachers certainly do not deserve such a large bonus, for lack of experience or aptitude, the truth still remains that the fault lies solely with MOE, and i feel its simply unfair for them to demand the entire quoted price back from teachers. one might compare it to a boy having his christmas present being snatched away from him merely because it was given to the wrong person. one might reflect that the government might require more sensitivity in light of the people’s feelings.
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Honestly, I don’t blame people like Teechars for having such a negative view of teachers.
During recessions and bad times, many people who lost their job hop over to teaching as a way of income, and leave as soon as the “sky” gets brighter and have finished their contract.
These group of teachers do not have that passion to teach, and brought about a negative view of teaching – A good and easy profession to earn money.
That, added along with some misinformation (thanks to some teachers who are very good at playing Tai-Chi when it comes to work), easily tainted the name of teachers in SG. The truth is that no matter where you go, there are people good at playing Tai-chi and slacking about, so it shouldn’t apply to only teachers.
Regards,
A Certain Pri School teacher
P.S. Just passing by this webpage, probably won’t be back again, so no point in replying to my post
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