Midlife career change of an Engineer to School Teacher

[Dn123]

Hi

Does anyone have an idea at the current MOE payscale for an engineer with a midlife career change to teaching can expect?

This is for an engineer with a masters in mechanical engineering from NTU and with 15 years engineering working experience.

Please do share stories you have heard or your own expereince

thanks

[taxico]

to become a "real" teacher, you will need to go back to school (NTU-NIE) and obtain a post-grad diploma.

why don't you get your feet wet first? i know they allow you to teach for a trial period (3-6 months?) so as to know if you like/are suited for teaching, prior to enrolling into the PG program.

passing the interview process may or may not be challenging, and does not depend on whether you like teaching or not. being a former scholar will help.


having a master's will help, i'm sure. the pay's about $3-4k. i'm sure it's a big pay cut. but hey, teaching is a noble profession.

there is no such thing as a bond-free PG diploma course, even if you're willing to pay for it yourself (not cheap, as i understand it). if you try, they will reject your application for one reason or another - eventually someone will advise you to try for the MOE-bonded program.

so you will be bonded for 3 years (?) after you graduate. you cannot pick your school. you cannot pick your students either.

i hope you know what you're in for. singapore kids these days are a little, peculiar, for lack of a better word and i'm sugar coating it.

[Dn123]

Thanks Taxico

That is indeed a very low starting pay for an Engineer with 15 years working experience and a masters. In their website the starting pay of a graduate is 3K. So 15 years of working experience is compensated with only 1k?

Then it maybe totally not worth it. If the starting pay is around 5-6K then a professional would think of changing career in mid life. This does not seem such a good incentive for a someone in the working force with 15 years experience.

The bonding and training is not much of an issue.

[sundaymorningstaple]

As a teacher you do not have 15 years experience. You are starting from scratch. Big difference. That's what happens when one swaps careers. I know. I've done it twice in my 64+ years.