Prison Teacher in S’pore Reveal How It’s Like Teaching Behind Bars
When it comes to teaching, we all can understand that teacher mostly will be teaching in primary school or some institution. However, a teacher who has been teaching position in prison, Lee Chee Khuen, 60-year-old has been an MOE teacher since 1987, and in 2009 he has taken a chance on a job opening for A level Principles of Accounting (POA) teaching position in prison. Since then, he has been teaching N, O and A-Level POA as well as H1 and H2 Economics to inmate students.
Lee, has been teaching for over 30 years and previously he has been teaching accounting in Junior College (JC) and a secondary school. However, on 2009, he saw a job opening in prison school and he thinks that it might be meaningful to educate the student behind bars. Which he soon found that it will be a great experience to be a part of their rehabilitation journey as they work hard or their exams.
The school hours in prison are more or less the same and it will start at 8.30 am and end in the afternoon with one period is around 45 minutes and each class has about 25 students with whiteboards and projectors. Students can also take the same national exam as their mainstream school counterparts and they are given textbooks and note which they can study after school hours.
They also have co-curricular activities (CCAs), such as the guitar club, keyboard club, reading club, and more. This is to provide a more holistic education, just like in mainstream schools. Teachers are required the same qualification to teach in prison such as National Institute of Education (NIE). There also more than 10 full time teacher in prison from MOE. And there are even supported by part-time and volunteer teachers.
The student in prison are differentiated with each inmate has to take an entrance exam so that they can be placed at the correct level. Lee also expressed that he had not encountered any unpleasant situations and if there are anything to happen, the teachers have a button which we can press to call for assistance from the prison officers. And the inmates are all very motivated in their learning process also.
Lee also mentioned that his most memorable moment are when he gets to witness his students getting released from prison and turning over a new leaf.
