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How does Singapore develop its teachers?

Demonstrating the usefulness of 100 hours of CPD. Ask expert from Singapore to elaborate on this essential aspect of Asian maths teaching.
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Singapore has a rigorous teaching preparation and systematic professional development system for teachers. All Singapore school teachers are expected to complete their pre-service training programs at the national institute of education, or NIE, where I taught for over 12 years. It’s part of Nanyang Technological University. After starting their careers in school, all in-service teachers in Singapore will have access to a relatively comprehensive and systematic in-service training and professional development activities at the different levels, including NIE, MOE, the Ministry of Education, including academy of Singapore teachers, school zones, school clusters and individual schools. Second, in-service training has received the increasing attention over the last decade or so in Singapore.
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And the new CPD policies, school teachers can apply for professional development leave for 10 weeks after working for 12 years. And they will be paid full salary since 2006. And moreover, every teacher in Singapore is entitled to 100 hours of in-service training every year since the late 1990s. In addition, many schools have reserved one hour fixed time each week for the school teachers’ CPD activity. Third, NIE has developed a large variety of in-service training courses for school teachers since 2000, including teaching of different topics, action research, alternative assessment, using ICT mathematics teaching and learning and so on and so forth. It has also offered master degree programs for in-service of school teachers.
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Finally, Singapore has very clear professional development path for Singapore teachers. It has three tracks. It’s called a teaching track, leadership track and senior specialist track. For teaching track, so teachers will proceed to the next level senior teacher, then lead teacher, then master teacher and principal master teacher. According to Singapore Education Minister, it says the Singapore Minister Ministry of Education will identify and encourage more teachers to be principal master teachers, master teachers, lead teachers and senior teachers to take up appointments to mentor other teachers. Aim to advance the frontiers of teaching which are the purposes of this system.

In this video, Prof. Fan introduces CPD in Singapore.

Singapore has a rigorous teacher preparation and professional development system. All Singapore school teachers are expected to complete their pre-service training programme at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University.

After starting their careers in school, all in-service teachers in Singapore have access to comprehensive and systematic in-service training and professional development activities at different levels, including NIE, MOE (including Academy of Singapore Teachers), School Zones, Schools Clusters, and individual schools.

In-service training has received increasing attention over the last decade in Singapore. Under the new CPD policies, school teachers can apply for professional development leave of 10 weeks after working for 12 years, paid full salary since 2006. Moreover, every teacher is entitled to 100 hours of in-service training each year since the late 1990s. In addition, many schools have reserved 1 hour fixed time each week for CPD. NIE has developed a large variety of in-service training courses for school teachers since 2000, including teaching of different topics, action research, alternative assessment, using ICT in mathematics teaching and learning. It has also offered Master degree programmes for in-service school teachers. There is also clear career path for teachers in Singapore schools.

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World Class Maths: Asian Teaching Methods

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