SINGAPORE — Teachers are not required to share their personal phone numbers, and do not need to respond to work-related messages after school hours, said Education Minister Chan Chun Sing.

Instead, they should use official channels like their e-mail and office number when contacting parents, and respond to work-related messages after school hours only in the event of emergencies, he added.

"Within a normal work day, if it's not an emergency, beyond 5pm, you don't have to respond to whether (the parents') son must wear a brown or yellow T-shirt," said Chan, who was speaking at the Ministry of Education (MOE) Schools Work Plan Seminar on Sept 18.

"All this is to establish boundaries, to allow educators to focus on conducting class and student activities, and to ensure that our educators have protected time after school hours to take care of (their) families, rest, and recharge," he added.

The event was held at the Singapore Expo and attended by over 1,700 people, including teachers, school leaders and parents. Minister of State for Education Gan Siow Huang and Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education Shawn Huang were also present. 

The new boundaries set for teachers are part of refreshed Guidelines for School-Home Partnership (GSHP), which will guide schools and parents on how they can "work together positively, constructively, and respectfully", Chan said. 

The guidelines were developed through engagements with more than 300 teachers and parents from May to August 2024, said MOE. Chan said schools can apply these guidelines in a way that best fits their own context, in consultation with teachers and parents.

Chan said that parents should not contact teachers about things like whether their child should wear a yellow or brown shirt tomorrow, or where their spelling list is, as these should be the student's responsibilities.

"It is your job to figure it out and remember that this is part of your learning," he added, while giving an example about how he does not check his son's spelling list. 

Chan defined emergencies as instances when the health and welfare of a child is at risk.

"We make a distinction between what's important, and for what's important, we will go all out... for unimportant things, we can take our time and manage it differently," he said, adding that a teacher's duty of care should not overwhelm his or her duty to help the child grow. 

Tan Chen Kee, Deputy Director-General of Education (Schools) and Director of Schools at MOE, said that on the ground, schools, teachers and parents will need to have conversations about how to implement these guidelines. 

Some schools may choose to have briefings with parents, while others may engage their parents support group, she said, adding that the ministry will work with the schools to implement this over the next few years. 

Parents need to know not to "over parent", Tan said, not to solve their children's problems for them, and learn to work with the school and let their children accept the consequences of their actions. 

Chan announced other measures that focused on protecting teachers, reducing their workload, and improving their well-being, as well as measures that support parents. 

To further protect teachers, there will be a new engagement charter, he said, to make clear that "boorish and bullying behaviour is unacceptable". He added that the ministry will take firm action against individuals who threaten, insult, or abuse its staff.

Teacher's workload will also be managed, as admin work and non-teaching programmes continue to be streamlined. 

Currently, teachers have had their exam administrative load reduced by 10 per cent, and invigilation load by 15 per cent, Chan said, and technology will continue to be explored to reduce administrative work. 

A new process will also be piloted, where parents can submit their child's medical certificates online via Parents Gateway which will go to School Cockpit Mobile, a system that provides schools with administration support, to update teachers. 

The pilot will be conducted in 10 schools across the primary to pre-university levels in the first school term of 2025, and the feature will be gradually introduced to all schools by the end of 2025.

In addition, from 2026, schools can have an option to run either the Applied Learning Programme (ALP) and Learning Life Programme (LLP), or stick to running both, said Chan.

The ALP and LLP are initiatives by MOE to help students learn beyond the classroom, through hands-on activities that help them contextualise what they learn in school. These could be programmes in robotics or drama, for instance.

This is to help schools free up manpower for other priorities like training for teachers, Chan said, which will give teachers time to focus more on student development and imparting values beyond content knowledge. 

Parents and schools should communicate with kind words, work together to role model the values for children, and support children in building connections with one another, and develop good habits, said Chan. 

He also introduced a set of resources, or a "toolbox" of strategies for parents, which will include tips on creating safe home environments and managing challenges like academic anxiety and screen time limits. 

A website will also be launched in Jan 2025 that will provide parents with relevant content based on their responses to questionnaires. 

These are all but guidelines for the teaching fraternity, as we look at "new mindsets that we need to refresh, the new skill sets that we need to acquire", said Chan. 

Parents The Straits Times spoke to said parents support groups (PSGs) play a vital role in maintaining relationships between parents and teachers, and ensuring that boundaries are kept to. 

Cheryl Cheang, 42, a freelance content writer who chairs and vice-chairs two separate PSGs in Catholic High School and School of Science and Technology respectively, said they act as a "middle man" by answering questions from parents that would typically be directed to teachers. 

"By helping to filter these questions, the five minutes that we have helped teachers to buy is five extra minutes that the teacher can enjoy," she said.

Her sentiments were echoed by Nicholas Ng, 48, an IT director who chairs the PSG in Yew Tee Primary. He said that one way the school's PSG supports teachers is by having a few of his executive committee members in each of the class group chats. 

"We can assist parents with their questions, and facilitate the conversations between teachers and parents," he said, adding that sometimes, PSG also plays the role of a mediator. 

This way, boundaries can continue to be established while maintaining good parent-teacher relationships, Ng said. He has been a part of the PSG for five years. 

School leaders who spoke to ST on condition of anonymity said that while they welcome these new guidelines, there are concerns about how to implement them, and said that schools will need to make gradual adjustments. 

One principal said these guidelines are "sensible and calibrated, but not radical". 

He shared concerns about the difficulty in confining all communications to school hours, as parents have differing ideas of what is important and urgent.  

"This will be hard to implement, especially if the mode of communication is not standardised," he said, adding that Parents Gateway could explore including a messaging system with parents. 

While there is no expectation to give a personal phone number out, many teachers still do it for convenience, he said, noting that shifting expectations will require time.

Another principal said that while his school has had a "respectful and supportive partnership" with most parents over the years, there are still some parents who are more anxious.

He added that both parents and school leaders must uphold "reasonable boundaries in their interaction with teachers", so the well-being of the child remains the primary focus.

"It still takes a village to grow our children," he said.

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