On Improving Well-being-related Resources for Special Education Teachers

QUESTIONS ON IMPROVING WELL-BEING-RELATED RESOURCES FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS

By Denise Phua

I need to declare that I am a volunteer helping two special schools. It is true that burnout, physical risks are quite common amongst the SPED schools. And, in fact, a number of the staff are female; so, where physical risk is involved, they are, indeed, at risk. So, we need to make sure that we protect them.

My second point is, the Journeys of Excellence Package that was mentioned by the Minister, covers mostly SPED teachers. But within the SPED schools setting, there are speech pathologists, occupational therapists, coaches and psychologists. Many of them work in the exact same setting. In fact, they handle even higher risk or more challenging cases. So, we must include them in whatever we come up with, in terms of the excellence for SPED schools.

My third point is also with the increase in parental leave, maternity leave and so forth, which we must support at the national level, we have also increased the workload of many of the SPED staff, because it is not easy to just create or develop a relief pool who can just move into the class and replace the usual staff. So, there are issues which are of concern in the SPED school setting.

I know it is important and I thank the Minister for saying that you have formed a group to look into these, but can this group who looks into these issues include the other non-teachers, the other staff as well. And also, look at the best in the world, best in class resources and hear from the staff themselves as to what might be useful when developing these packages of help.