Teachers Get More Choices for Professional Excellence and Work-Life Aspirations

Melvyn Lim raised a few eyebrows when he quit his job in the high-flying banking sector to become a teacher. But it’s a mid-career switch he has no regrets about. After all, it was a move that has traded financial dividends for one of the most rewarding journeys of his life.

“I find teaching highly fulfilling,” explains Mr Lim, who joined the teaching service in 1996. “I derive a lot of meaning interacting with students and colleagues in school.” Mr Lim currently teaches Knowledge and Inquiry (KI) to Junior College (JC) 2 students at Hwa Chong Institution (HCI). Earlier, he had taught General Paper at Temasek Junior College.

Mr Lim’s breadth of experience in both the corporate and education realms has certainly paid off for his students. Take Charmaine Han, who found his classes to be life changing. “There I learnt how to think and write with discipline,” says the HCI alumni who is heading to Harvard Law School under a Ministry of Trade and Industry scholarship.

Supporting teachers’ professional growth

It’s no surprise that the learning never stops for Mr Lim, who holds a Masters in Ethics and Applied Linguistics. In 2008, he applied to the Graduate School of Education in the University of Western Australia to do a doctorate focusing on how teachers in a ‘Future School’ integrate technology with the school curriculum.

Explaining his motivation to further his post-graduate education, Mr Lim said, “I firmly believe in lifelong learning. I also wanted to broaden my experience and doing graduate work is a good way to grow professionally.” He is now writing his thesis, having received a year of study leave from HCI in 2010.

“For many years, I have been reading the latest education journals and getting acquainted with teaching innovations and best practices around the world,” adds Mr Lim, “New ideas and new knowledge are exciting.”

Mr Lim had a head start, but teachers can look forward to greater support for their professional development following MOE’s launch of the TEACH framework this March. Seeking to boost both the professional excellence and work-life aspirations of Singapore teachers, TEACH opens up new avenues for juggling work and studies and also provides financial support for graduate and post-graduate courses.

Within schools, there will also be more paths for career advancement for teachers with vision and leadership capabilities as heads of departments, subject heads and level heads, in addition to positions dealing with student development and co-curricular activities. At the MOE level, the education landscape will expand in breadth and depth as the ministry beefs up its organisational capabilities and expertise in various specialisations to offer teachers better support for diverse students and situations.

Never a dull moment

Mr Lim’s own track provides a model of what many teachers can expect in the years ahead. For a year in 2003, he served as a Planning Officer in MOE’s Education Policy Branch. There, he gained experience in formulating and implementing policies for the Integrated Programme, junior colleges and the revised JC curriculum.

When he joined HCI (then Hwa Chong JC) in 2004, Mr Lim arrived at what he described as a “watershed in its history.” The JC was the first in Singapore to turn independent and offer the Integrated Programme, shortly before it merged with Chinese High School to form HCI. Then in 2007, HCI set up a satellite campus in Beijing, another first for a Singapore school and pioneered in 2008 the ‘Future School’ programme.

Managing all these initiatives was squarely up Mr Lim’s alley, thanks to his stints in both classroom teaching and education planning. “To see national policies, ideas and abstract concepts being transformed into reality in the school was one of the highlights of my teaching career,” he remarked.

This penchant for pulling together diverse strings of thought spills over into the classroom. “I like being in a position to get students thinking seriously about basic questions on the nature of knowledge, metaphysics, moral and political philosophy, as well as their place in the world and society,” Mr Lim revealed. “I like thinking about different ways to engage students, to challenge their perspectives and to get them to look at situations in another way.”

Concurring, Charmaine recalls that Mr Lim’s classes taught her fundamental skills that receive little attention elsewhere. Describing her own encounters, Goh Mei Hui, a JC2 student at HCI, stated, “My KI experience has been very fulfilling. Mr Lim has also been a very patient and helpful mentor in guiding me through my Independent Studies.”

In addition to his duties as a teacher, Mr Lim manages public and media relations as the Communications Director for HCI. Other tasks include school outreach and publications, a multiplicity of roles that he maintains keeps his work from ever getting boring.

“I’m ready to serve in a greater capacity,” he declares of what lies ahead after his Ph.D. “I am fortunate to be in a school that is at the forefront of educational change and innovation. So there’s never a dull moment.”