Understanding career choice motivations: a case study of public school teacher candidates in Singapore

ABSTRACT

In response to the rapidly-changing global market, Singapore has started to pay greater attention to educating students to become active and informed citizens with the high-level soft skills needed for the 21st century. This inspired us to examine how the government can effectively recruit a sustained and sufficiently large cohort of potential teachers with high levels of passion and self-efficacy to teach the humanities and social studies (HSS) to today’s young generation. Based on semi-structured interviews with teacher candidates who aim to become HSS secondary school teachers in Singapore, we found that their motivations are shaped not only by fundamental vocational and material forces, but also by various non-material, social and cultural forces, which might build up over time. Particularly, not to mention the values embedded in the HSS, individual trainees’ prior experiences with learning and teaching, their so-called socialization influences from former teachers and/or co-curricular activities, have played a critical role in their goal orientation.

KEYWORDS:

• Career choice
• teacher
• humanities and social sciences
• Singapore
• soft skills

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. In the words of Mr. Ong Ye Kung, previous Acting Minister for Education, at the roundtable on the value of HSS education and the launch of the new faculty of arts and social science curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2016): “Even as many jobs progressively become automated, skills such as critical thinking, creativity, and emotional intelligence remain a very human preserve, out of reach of even the most advanced robots or artificial intelligence. … the value of the humanities and social sciences cannot be denied. … because they are disciplines that inherently cultivate open-mindedness and an appreciation for multiple perspectives, which we will need to tackle the complex problems of today and tomorrow..”

2. These are high school level qualifications that are equivalent to each other. Singapore has three types of high schools. The first are junior colleges, in which students spend 2 years studying a fixed set of subjects for the GCE ‘A’ Levels examination jointly administered by Singapore’s MOE and Cambridge University in the UK. The second are polytechnics, in which students spend three years taking modules on a semesterly basis to obtain a diploma. The third type are ITEs, in which students spend 1 to 2 years finishing a diploma.

3. The humanities subjects taught at MOE-operated secondary schools include economics, history and geography.

4. One of the pioneers in the study of PSM, Perry (1996, pp. 6–7), has operationally conceptualized the motivation of individuals to join public service, known as PSM, according to six main driving factors (dimensions): (1) attraction to policy-making - individuals want to take part in making policy; (2) commitment to the public interest - individuals possess the essentially altruistic desire to serve the public good; (3) civic duty - individuals possess a commitment to maintaining the power of the state as non-elected officials who are entrusted with a certain amount of this power; (4) social justice - individuals want to improve the welfare of minority groups who possess few political or economic resources; (5) compassion - individuals possess a general love for all people within their political domain and a desire to protect their basic rights; (6) self-sacrifice - individuals are willing to sacrifice financial gains for the non-material rewards gained from public service.

5. For more detailed information, please see NIE (n.d.b.).

6. Singapore’s pre-university education levels can be categorized into primary, secondary, and junior college levels. Primary (elementary school) students are aged 7 to 12 years, secondary (middle school) students are aged 13 to 16 or 17 years, and junior college (pre-university or high school) students are aged 17 or 18 to 19 or 20 years. For more detailed information, please see Tan (2021).

7. The demographic profile of the respondents is as follows: 60% were female and 40% were male. In terms of ethnicity, 86.7% were Chinese, 10% were Malay, and 3.3% were Indian. In terms of the training program breakdown, 63.3% were pursuing the Postgraduate Diploma in Education, while 36.7% were pursuing the Bachelor of Arts in Education (for the detailed information, please see Appendix).

8. During each interview, the following questions were asked: (1) Please introduce yourself and the NIE degree or diploma you are currently taking; (2) What does the MOE Humanities or Social Studies secondary school teacher profession mean to you? (Prompt: Prior to entering the NIE programme that you are in, did you have an impression or idea of the job demands of the MOE Humanities or Social Studies secondary school teacher?); (3) What experience(s) or factor(s), if any, motivated you to enroll into your current NIE programme to become an MOE Humanities or Social Studies secondary school teacher?

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Singapore Ministry of Education Tier-1 Grant (RG117/20) and the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea [NRF-2018S1A3A2075609].

Notes on contributors

Kai Xiang Kwa

Kai Xiang Kwa is a lecturer as well as a PhD candidate of the Public Policy and Global Affairs Programme, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research interests include public service motivation, public policy in Singapore, media and culture in public administration and policy, and a mixed methods approach.

Soojin Kim

Soojin Kim is an assistant professor of the Public Policy and Global Affairs Programme, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research interests include policy effectiveness, public budgeting and financial management, contracting out, and institutional arrangements in policy choices.