Teachers need not share personal contact numbers, answer messages after school hours: Chan Chun Sing

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 Mr Chan.

He 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, to guide schools and parents on how they can “work together positively, constructively and respectfully”, Mr Chan said. 

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

Mr Chan said that parents should not contact teachers about things like what attire their child should wear to school 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. 

Mr Chan defined emergencies as instances where the health and welfare of a child are 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. 

An MOE spokeswoman said that while teachers are not expected to provide their personal mobile numbers to parents, some may have done so for ease of communication, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Parents should communicate with teachers via e-mail and contact the school’s general office if they have urgent requests, she added. “These do not apply in cases of emergencies or exigencies of duty where prompt attention and communication are required.”

Teachers may respond to work-related messages the next working day if they are not able to take calls or access their e-mail during the school day due to lessons or duties, or if the queries and requests were made beyond work hours. Each school has different operating hours, said the spokeswoman.

Mrs Tan Chen Kee, deputy director-general of education (schools) and director of schools at MOE, said schools, teachers and parents will need to have conversations about how to implement these guidelines. 

The ministry will work with schools to implement this over the next few years, she said.  

Parents need to know not to “overparent”, Mrs Tan said, not to solve their children’s problems for them, and learn to work with the school. They should let their children accept the consequences of their actions. 

To further protect teachers, there will be a new engagement charter, Mr Chan 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.

Teachers’ workload will also be managed, he said. Currently, teachers have had their exam administrative load reduced by 10 per cent, and invigilation load by 15 per cent, and technology will continue to be explored to reduce administrative work, he added.

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 gradually be introduced to all schools by the end of 2025.

In addition, from 2026, schools have the option of running either

the Applied Learning Programme (ALP) or

the Learning Life Programme (LLP), or stick to running both, said Mr 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. 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, Mr Chan said, which will, in turn, 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 Mr 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 January 2025 to provide parents with relevant content based on their responses to questionnaires. 

These resources are part of a new inter-agency initiative – involving MOE, the Ministry of Social and Family Development and the Health Promotion Board – to support parents.

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. 

Mrs 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 parents support groups 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 Mr 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, he added. He has been a part of the PSG for five years. 

School leaders speaking 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 adjust gradually. 

One principal said it may be difficult to confine 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 out their personal phone numbers, many teachers do it for convenience, he added.

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.

A secondary school teacher, who requested to remain anonymous, said her school does not have any specific guidelines regarding replying to messages after working hours or giving out their personal numbers, and leaves these decisions to teachers.

Her school usually contacts parents through e-mail domains set up for them. Teachers also have the option of using Class Dojo, a platform to facilitate communication with parents and students.

She does not typically give out her phone number to students, unless they have higher needs. Even then, her students “more or less know their boundaries”, she added.

“I’m mostly okay to respond (after hours) if their messages are harmless,” she said.