Two “leading” countries in education, Singapore and Finland had a head-to-head of sorts with regards to how they perceive and take care of their teachers. At the Global Education Competitiveness Summit, a representative of the responsible departments for education in the two countries presented their approach to maintaining the well-being of teachers.

A snapshot of Finland

Low Khah Gek, the Director of the Curriculum, Planning and Development Division (CPDD) of the Ministry of Education represented Singapore’s approach while Timo Lankinen, the Director General of the Finnish National Board of Education represented Finland.

It is interesting to note the differences in approach to teacher welfare and teacher selection. According to Low, in Singapore only the top third of the graduating classes are selected to be teachers. She also mentioned the pre-service and in-service training training that teachers in Singapore are expected to undergo, mentioning the hours of training. She also described the career track of those in the education service adding that the jobs of administrators is the “pinnacle of education service” because of their influence over instruction and the school environment. She also talked about the performance bonuses of between one and three months pay that teachers can get.

In contrast, in the Finnish system, Mr Lankinen says that in Finland they only have a “very limited” performance pay. For him what is more pressing is “how to maintain good working conditions in school” as Finland’s leaders feel that such good conditions are essential to luring talented people into the classrooms and retaining them there.

In response to a question about America’s current pre-occupation with NCLB and testing, he said that Finland only tests representative samples of students, primarily as a way to gauge trends in school performance and teachers routinely assess students’ progress in class in order to improve instruction. According to him, to the Finns, “having well-trained and educated teachers” is more important to raising student achievement. He says in Finland, “people dream to be teachers.”

I cannot help feel that in Singapore the approach is to see teacher welfare as just a case of paying them and they will keep quiet about the working conditions. Bear in mind also the civil service code in Singapore of not criticizing the service in public. The Singapore approach is very impersonal. It is all about numbers. Tests are the norm in Singapore schools because the only measure of student achievement are written tests. They didn’t mention what Singapore’s representative means by performance bonus for good instruction. It usually means how well the students do on high stakes examinations. Singapore also harps on numbers in terms of hours of teachers training. It is numbers and numbers and more numbers. From this love affair with numbers you can see that Singapore’s approach is very administrative and seldom from the teaching point of view. It is therefore no surprise that someone high up in the administration says that the job of administrators is the pinnacle of the service.

Maybe another statistic is worth mentioning. According to a Straits Times report, teachers form the highest proportion of patients at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) in Singapore. Of course, this wasn’t mention at the summit.

So which approach do you think is more enlightened?