Parents urged to see teachers as partners, not service providers

Chan Chun Sing: Those who go overboard with demands deprive others of resources

- Natasha Ann Zachariah

Parents who escalate school issues unnecessarily and overstep boundaries with teachers are a minority, but they waste time and divert resources away from the wider school community, said Education Minister Chan Chun Sing.

They write to the media, the prime minister, even the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau; one turned up at his Meet-the-People session, others have sent lawyer's letters to air their grievances. Some parents will do all this to get their way, said the minister on Sept 20.

He stressed that the majority of parents are supportive of teachers and educators. But he said that the "small number" of parents who go overboard has a "disproportionate effect because they deprive the other parents of the time that the educators would want to spend with the kids".

Mr Chan was on The Usual Place, a podcast by The Straits Times, to talk about why he recently highlighted the need to establish guidelines on how parents communicate with teachers. Also weighing in on the issue and bringing his perspective as a father of two was Straits Times editor Jaime Ho.

Bypassing the school's leadership, and instead getting a minister to bring pressure on the school, is something that Mr Chan said he "cannot tolerate".

"I trust my principals, I trust my teachers. I always tell them that I'm not going to respond to this, because the more I respond to this, the more emboldened that individual will be to bypass (the system)," he said.

"Everybody will feel that - in order to get my way, I will have to do all this. The system will eventually break down, and (then) everyone loses. So for that very small number of parents, what they are doing is most unfair to the other parents and children."