PRIMARY school principals see a multitude of roles that Education Associates (EDAs) or teacher aides can play to help improve the classroom experience for students.

With the class size in most schools averaging 40 students, they said that the such teaching aides will help teachers manage the class better.

'Students have varying academic abilities. The EDAs could help the weaker ones keep up with the pace,' said Mr William Pushpam, the principal of Huamin Primary.

Mr Pushpam also said that EDAs could, for example, help set up lab experiments, saving the teacher time that could be spent on discussions with students.

By 2015, the Ministry of Eduacation plans to have 1,900 EDAs in primary and secondary schools, compared to the less than 100 today.

With the sweeping changes, primary schools will each have about five EDAs and secondary schools can hire up to seven - from one now.

Schools will be given the flexibility to deploy the associates according to their needs.

To recognise the contributions of allied educators like EDAs, full-time school counsellors and special needs officers, MOE will formalise the teaching support staff scheme as a parallel track to the teaching scheme from next January.

Allied educators can look forward to better salaries and opportunities for career advancement.

Those who perform well could upgrade their educational qualifications and become full-fledged teachers.

The concept of offering additional help in the classroom is not new.

Back in 2005, the Singapore Teachers' Union introduced teacher assistants in some schools to help teachers with duties like maintaining classroom discipline and administrative duties.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Education introduced education associates in 87 secondary schools to help students in the normal course.