The Case of Singapore: Shaping the Future of Teacher Leadership

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: The Challenges and Possibilities of Teacher Leadership: International Perspectives

Abstract

Teacher leadership in the Singapore education was borne out of a major education initiative at the turn of the 21st century when the education ministry introduced the three career tracks for teachers (Tan, 2011). They consist of the Teaching, Leadership and Senior Specialist. Whilst teachers choosing the Leadership track focus on management/leadership roles such as middle management and (vice) principal-ship and the Senior Specialist track on relevant specializations in terms of both knowledge and skills in educational development, teachers choosing the Teaching track focus on enhancing teachers’ pedagogical capabilities. Within school settings, teachers within the Teaching track grow in their career development by taking the role of Senior Teachers and then Lead Teachers. Beyond school settings, they can then take on the role of Master Teachers and then Principal Master Teachers (Tang, 2000; Tripp, 2004). These roles capture the essence of teacher leadership very well insofar as they are essentially teachers having the primary role of providing positive influence on teaching and learning within and across school contexts. Formal teacher leadership roles are also complemented with other informal teacher leadership roles. Both formal and informal teacher teachership roles have provided support to the more traditional work of middle managers who oversee the school curriculum since its initial introduction. The introduction and growth of teacher leadership is a testament to the increasing importance of both instructional and distributed leadership.

Several challenges to these efforts have been raised. Specifically, the attractiveness of the teacher leadership pathway and especially the transition from a classroom teacher to a formal teacher leadership position, which can be brought about by the ambiguities in terms of the specific enactments of teacher leadership and the schemes of support provided for teacher leaders to function effectively. This potential lack of attractiveness to take on teacher leadership positions then poses a threat to the growth and continuity of the pool of teacher leaders in schools and within the entire education system. The advantages of reaching a critical mass of teacher leaders within school settings and within the entire education system are compelling. As the Singapore education system is essentially hierarchically structured whereby improvements and innovations are encouraged within bounds – a decentralized-centralized system – the onus is on policymakers to come up with policies which will address the key concerns raised including the following: raising the attractiveness of the teacher leadership profession beyond monetary compensation; standardizing the enactment of teacher leadership practices that are more closely tied to direct impact on teaching and learning; early identification and selection of teacher leaders; stronger communication to school leaders on the importance teacher leaders in contributing to schools’ strategic thrusts; and considering standardizing off-loading schemes or provisions for teacher leaders across schools so as to ensure that teacher leaders have the necessary time to learn on their own or collectively with other teacher leaders to continually develop their own teacher knowledge and thus impacting their colleagues’ teacher knowledge enroute to student learning.

Author

• Salleh Hairon, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University