The topic of overworked teachers has been brought up before, but needs relooking as not much seems to have changed for the better.

My wife is an educator and is also part of her school's middle management team.

Over the past few weeks, when Covid-19 cases started sprouting up in schools, the workload of teachers has increased tremendously.

On top of their administrative and teaching roles, teachers are now deployed as contact-tracers for positive cases.

These duties can take up the whole afternoon and evening, with information from various ministries coming in at different times.

Teachers are expected to hop into action and abandon whatever they are doing (family and rest time go out the window) whenever cases are reported, even during the weekends.

During home-based learning periods, teachers have to work harder to conduct more lessons online as students are broken up into smaller groups for better control. This is, of course, on top of helping out their own children also on home-based learning.

Can we draw a clear line between those who are supposed to focus on teaching and others dedicated to contact-tracing and Covid-19-related matters?

How can we stop teachers from being exhausted and burnt out? They are already entering the school before sunrise and leaving only after sunset. The marking and calls to be answered continue at home.

The fight against the pandemic is going to continue, so we need to act fast or we'll face a collapse of one of the world's best education systems. Let's not wait till it's too late.

As for myself, I just hope to have a wife, a mother and a key family member back.

Ng Wei Yang