I had a chat with an 18 year old lady yesterday who was waiting to start her University life, and so was fresh out of Junior College. I asked her what she was doing in the meantime and as it turns out, she was a relief teacher at a neighbourhood Secondary school. I was quite surprised to find that they were hiring Junior College graduates to be relief teachers, but my shock did not end there.

Apparently, she was being made to serve the full responsibilities of a full-time teacher. Essentially, she was a relief teacher to a non-existent teacher. The Ministry of Education has found such a loophole to plug their manpower shortage. She is paid S$60 a day, had to contribute CPF and had no perks or medical coverage whatsoever. This is wrong on so many levels that I do not know where to begin criticism.

I know a teacher at a prestigious Junior College and also know someone else who left the teaching career at a neighbourhood Secondary school, and their students that I have encountered and the tales I have heard are completely poles apart.

Some of the students that I have met at the prestigious Junior College was highly self motivated, enthusiastic and eager to learn. You know they would not do too badly in the workforce because their organisation skills are already at a certain level at their age. Who would not want to teach children like that? In stark contrast, the tales I heard from my other friend, I can fully understand why he decided to leave the teaching career.

While I would hate to stereotype neighbourhood schools, the reality is that many of them end up with students who are less interested to learn, have more personal problems and are less obedient. The job of a teacher involves marking the attendance of his class in the morning, and calling the homes of those who have not turned up, to know their whereabouts. For my friend, that involved making up to 10 calls every single school day, such was the prevalence of problem students he had to deal with.

He had three students from China, whom he has never seen before in his life on his student roll. Even into three months of the school year, he has never successfully gotten through to these students over the phone. Even when SingTel started announcing that the number he has just called in no longer in use, his Vice-Principal could only tell him to keep trying.

Inundated with too many calls one Friday, he missed out calling one of his students. It completely slipped his mind until he got a call on Sunday. Apparently the student has not been to home since Friday. Fortunately, he had a bit of a rapport with that student and had his mobile phone number. He called and arranged a meeting on Sunday and had to convince the child to go home. I am not sure if this was the last straw, but when other issues overwelm the main reason he chose the career in the first place, I can fully understand why he decided that enough was enough.

I once had the fortune of being at my hairdresser’s when a jovial and talkative retired teacher was also there to do her hair. She brought curry puffs for the hairdressers and I was swept up in her generousity. In that 45 minutes of a haircut, she had shared countless stories of her career. But her parting shot stood out. She was putting off applying to the Ministry of Education to register herself as a part-time teacher. Apparently that option was open to retired teachers. Her reasoning was that they would definitely send her to schools with the most troublesome students because of her experience. She would rather spend a few years enjoying her new-found freedom first.

This is what I used to think about the difference between neighbourhood schools and prestigious schools, I had believed that the quality of the teachers were the same, only that in a prestigious school, the normal mentality of the students is that their studies was important, and there was an atmosphere of studiousness at least up to a certain extent. This was how I got through the education system. I have always been in decent schools where everyone else at least spent some time focusing on their schoolwork, that even playful and lazy students like myself was swept up in it enough to barely manage to scrape through.

Of course, even back then, I was aware that the schools I was in were an entire tier above some other schools. We have had students, both in my Primary and Secondary schools who were kicked out for being the lousiest students, only for them to join another school nearby and end up in the top class, sometimes getting the best grades in school. Back then, I always wanted to go to a lousy school and be the best there, instead of languishing in the nether depths of a top school. I had not yet realised how much the environment made a difference.

It was a rude shock when national statistics during those days revealed that only 40% of Secondary students progressed to Junior College and Polytechnic. I looked around me, and at the schools of my siblings, and could not see how that statistic could be real. The schools that my siblings and I were in probably had 99% to 100% of students who end up continuing their education. I barely made it into Polytechnic myself, so naturally thought of myself as the stuff at the bottom of the barrel. It was only when I got older when I started meeting people who came from Secondary schools where their top 5 students managed to get into Polytechnic. That completely blew my mind.

A friend who is currently in the public relations department of the Singapore Armed Forces recently illuminated me that the National Service system is the glue in the fabric of our society, it is the only place where top prestigious school graduates get to meet middle of the road guys like me, and others who have had much shorter education life. While the rest of us still sniff at those high and mighties who end up as our Officers, it was the only chance for those guys to see lowly peasants like ourselves and suffering together with us apparently gives them a much needed reality check. Which I daresay, ladies from top schools need a dose of.

Perhaps they can get a dose of it by being exploited as a relief teacher in a neighbourhood school, that would certainly shatter any Mother Theresa delusions they might have. Apparently the state of our education system was worse than I had thought. Even if the Ministry of Education was to send top teachers to the weakest schools, the environment in which they need to operate under would just bleed them dry. The end result is that fully trained teachers choose to leave the career for a more lucrative shot as a tuition teacher, retired teachers reconsider and choose to stay away, and untrained and under qualified Junior College graduates are corralled into playing full-time teachers, teaching some foreign students who are older than them.

I am glad I ended up in decent schools, and also glad that my niece and nephew are in good schools. Good schools have an environment where there is a minimum standard of interest in studies and even weaker students are bouyed by it and make it through. No wonder there is such a charge during Primary 1 enrollment exercises, and such acrimony with placements into Secondary schools. It is a conundrum that the Ministry of Education cannot solve. So the best schools get better, and the worst schools get worse.