SINGAPORE – The quality of teachers is a greater determinant of educational outcomes than class size, said Education Minister Chan Chun Sing.

Though some suggest that hiring more teachers would reduce class sizes, that does not guarantee good teacher quality, he said in an interview with The Straits Times.

Said Mr Chan: “Can you double the number of teachers and still maintain the quality?” 

The number of teachers in the fraternity has declined over the years due to a slowdown in recruitment, from 33,378 in 2016 to 30,396 in 2023. The Ministry of Education (MOE) has not released the figure for 2024.

But Mr Chan said the teacher to student ratio – the total number of teachers against student enrolment numbers – has improved, partly due to smaller student cohort sizes.

The teacher to student ratio in primary schools decreased from 16.5 in 2014 to 15.2 in 2023.

In secondary schools, the ratio has remained stable, at 12.6 in 2023, which is comparable to 12.5 in 2014.

MOE reported that although the ratio has increased slightly over the past three years, it is still comparable to Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development averages and those in countries like the US, Britain and Germany.

He said MOE recruits up to 700 teachers annually, and this has been consistent over the years.

“Every organisation, no matter how much money you throw at it, you can only recruit so many people, because people have many choices.”

He cited the example of class sizes in the US, China and Singapore. Though all three countries have comparable overall teacher to student ratios, their class sizes vary greatly.

While teachers in China adopt “lectorial” styles of teaching where they handle about 70 students in a single lesson, US teachers have much smaller class sizes, he said, adding that Singapore sits somewhere in the middle.

The average form class size for primary and secondary schools here is 32 to 33 students, though actual class size can be smaller for some subjects and lessons. A typical class size in the US is about 20 students.

“The US seems to have seemingly smaller class sizes, but they still have to handle the same number of students. It just means that the teacher has double the load,” he said. Mr Chan said this results in teachers having less time to rest and develop themselves.

“We found that the Chinese teachers have a lot of time for personal development… And you cannot say that their system is not producing results,” he added.

Singapore’s focus instead is to maximise teachers’ capabilities and capacities, he said, and one way to do this is to stop teaching to the average.

To this end, subject-based banding, where a class of students is split into three groups according to their ability in a subject, allows teachers to be much more targeted in the way they deliver lessons and improves their teaching load, said Mr Chan.

This is also one of the reasons for the review of the Gifted Education Programme, he added, whereby students are no longer considered as generally gifted, but gifted in specific areas.

Educational technology can also be used to cater to students’ different learning needs, Mr Chan said.

Another important aspect is societal respect for teachers. While MOE recently refreshed the Guidelines for School-Home Partnership, to help parents and schools work better together, Mr Chan said it is not only about establishing boundaries on communication.

“The larger message is not whether you call or don’t call the teacher… How do you respect the teachers’ professionalism, and their time and space?”

In South Korea, reports of teachers being bullied by parents to the point of dying by suicide resulted in difficulties recruiting good teachers.

“This is the warning for us to make sure that we continue to respect our teachers and don’t take it as a given, that we are always in this nice position to have our pick of the best people to be our teachers.”

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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.