The Ministry of Education (MOE) is set to have 130 student welfare officers for primary and secondary schools by the end of next year.
Second Minister for Education Maliki Osman gave this update during an interview on Monday, where he spoke about his ministry's efforts to support at-risk students.
These officers work with students who face difficulties - including those who are absent from school for a prolonged period or those who are statutory cases, he said.
Statutory cases include students who have had brushes with the law.
MOE currently has 105 student welfare officers serving in schools. These officers also help to link students to community resources through an Uplift town-level coordinator in social service offices. Uplift is a multi-agency task force set up to support vulnerable students and their families.
Each coordinator handles at least 60 cases, said Dr Maliki.
Another aim is to have more than 1,000 teacher-counsellors trained in basic counselling across schools in the next few years, up from about 700 currently.
"We want to continue to increase the number of teacher-counsellors... We know some of our students, particularly because of Covid-19, are manifesting some mental health challenges," Dr Maliki added.
Addressing concerns that teachers would be stretched too thin, with more required from them to help disadvantaged students, he said: "We know it's not easy for (teachers) to do everything. We know they need support.
"And Uplift is designed to provide that support for them to do their work, as well as for them to be able to work with different partners and have additional resources to do the best for these children."
Serangoon Secondary School, one of the pilot schools that have been receiving more resources from MOE since 2019, set up an educational support committee last year to oversee its intervention programmes for students with greater needs.
Ms Michelle Ong, its head of department for educational support, said that with the additional manpower, the school is better able to monitor students' progress and work with partners to develop programmes for them.
The committee also works closely with form teachers and the school counsellor to see how best to help students, she said. This year, the school customised timetables for a group of Secondary 3 students who were absent from school for long periods.
"Besides learning fundamental subjects like English and maths, they also have sessions on life skills with the student welfare officer, where they reflect on themselves, explore their strengths through activities like canvas painting, and set targets," said Ms Ong.
"The aim is to motivate them in a small-group setting where they feel safe and confident to learn, and we don't want it to just be academic intervention."
She said the school hopes to identify students who would benefit from such support earlier, in Secondary 1.
"Change doesn't happen overnight... it takes time to help families to see the little successes that their child is going through, and that's where we slowly get their buy-in, to support the child further."
Amelia Teng
