In the lean times that Singapore is facing, Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MOE) has announced plans to recruit 3000 teachers in 2009. The current Minister of Education, Ng Eng Hen, has moved to assure everyone in Singapore that although that is the target, the MOE will be quite happy if it does not meet the quota it has set for itself. The Minister said:

“We will… ensure that only those with the passion, aptitude and commitment to teaching are selected,”

He also said:

“We would rather hire less to get the type of teachers we want to maintain a quality teaching force.”

He was responding to queries in Singapore’s Parliament by its members about MOE’s recruitment policies. The Member of Parliaments (MPs) were voicing the concerns of many in Singapore that the MOE’s recruitment drive would capture the wrong people for the job in the light of the current depressed job market. But these assurances were already given earlier so why do these MPs still need to be reassured.

Perhaps this is because the MOE has not explained how it is going to “ensure that only those with the passion, aptitude and commitment to teaching are selected.” The Senior Minister of State for Education, Grace Fu added that only half of those applicants who met the academic criteria passed the selection interview. This suggests that the MOE still depends very much on the interview process to select teachers. How the interview panel is able to do this is anyone’s guess.

It is about time that the MOE introduces psychological tests to help it make more informed choices with regards to the selection process for teachers. The MOE also can choose to look for candidates whose views of what learning is all about would be more suitable to producing students for the 21st century. Sure it is perhaps too much to ask untrained people to discuss about educational issues but at the very least, I am certain we can find out if such people are stuck in the old traditional paradigm about what schooling is. The selectors must be brave to select people who, to borrow the Apple tagline,  “think different”. Singapore needs it if it is going to solve the problems created by the old paradigm of teaching and learning.

The psychological tests can also be used to sought such people. People who are creative and dare to take on and bring on change. The MOE must also make sure there are real changes to its schooling system so that such people will not be penalized for trying to be different. Here, the MOE must work harder on changing the paradigms of the teachers and school administrators already in service. This, I suspect, will be difficult for the MOE because how do you tell a group of workers who have always been raised for a wonderful job that a lot of their current practices need a serious revamp? The MOE has always praised its teachers and the pay structure for teachers is one of the best in Singapore’s civil service. But “the times they are a-changin”. They ought to be told and given clear signals that the old ways alone will just not be sufficient anymore for education in Singapore.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.

- “The Times They Are A-Changin” by Bob Dylan