Time Spent by Teachers on Marking Assignments and Administrative Work

28 Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong asked the Minister for Education (Schools) (a) what measures have been taken in the last three years to reduce the time spent by teachers on marking assignments and administrative work; and (b) whether the Ministry has considered measures, such as (i) consolidating and centralising tasks, such as marking and (ii) the use of more online tests.

Mr Ng Chee Meng : The well-being of our teachers is important and we have put in place a set of measures to guide schools in the allocation and management of teachers’ workload, which includes teaching and administrative responsibilities.

As an integral part of their teaching responsibilities, teachers set assignments and assessments to find out whether students have learnt the knowledge and skills set out in the national curriculum. This is an important professional role of teachers, as it is by analysing students’ performance that teachers are able to identify students’ learning needs, tailor their teaching to meet those needs and give feedback to each student. To support teachers in setting and marking assignments, the subject syllabi are accompanied by MOE-designed teaching and learning guides that include guidelines for the setting of assignment tasks. In most schools, teachers work in teams to design assessments and there is careful deployment to manage the marking workload of teachers.

Teachers will deploy technology in assessment work when it is educationally purposeful to support teaching and learning. For instance, when multiple choice items are meaningful, it will be set and automatically marked by machines. Similarly, the use of digital quizzes in learning portals have enabled some basic assessment tasks to be set and automatically marked.

We will also continue to incorporate greater use of technology in their administrative tasks and simplify work processes to help our teachers better manage their workload.