Abstract
Background: As the sole teacher provider in Singapore, the National Institute of Education (NIE) prepares all new teachers for the Singapore’s Education System. In the last decade. NIE’s enrolments for initial teacher preparation programmes have grown significantly. There has been a parallel increase in the number of career changers entering the teaching profession. This article explores why a number of career changers entered the field of education as well as their perception of the field of teaching.
Aims: To investigate key factors and reasons why career changes choose teaching as a second career.
Sample: A research survey was administered to 80 Postgraduate-in-Education (Primary) programme student teachers who chose teaching as a second career. This paper presents the survey findings on their reasons for choosing teaching as a career. The paper also reports the interviews of 4 randomly selected second career student teachers in the programme and the perspectives that they bring into the teaching profession.
Method: Survey was conducted and the responses received were tabulated.
Results: The results found that second-career teachers do not consider the lower compensation associated with the new profession as the main decisive factor for choosing teaching. The trade-off is the increased personal satisfaction.
Conclusion: It is also important to help second career teachers make connections between prior work and teaching. With increased numbers of career changers entering the field of teaching, an important factor to seriously consider is how to fulfill the expectations of the second career changers in those intrinsic and altruistic motives that they deem important.
| Keywords: | teacher education; teaching as a second career |
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