By Ramesh Subbaraman
They play an important role in moulding children in schools to become leaders of tomorrow – teachers, all 33,000 of them.
Who’s looking after them? A union that speaks up for their needs and looks into the challenges facing the profession, and that is the Singapore Teachers’ Union (STU).
We meet up with 47-year-old Mike Thiruman, STU’s president since 2003, to hear about his journey in the union.
How did you first get involved with the union?
I joined STU in 1995 when I was posted to my first school, Townsville Primary School. However, my deeper involvement started in 1999, when STU wanted to start its youth chapter called Young STU. I was appointed co-chair with my comrade, Edwin Lye. We wanted to get more young teachers involved in union activities.
What are some of the activities that are close to your heart in STU?
As a unionist, every time we are able to help a member through his or her work-related difficulty, it is very satisfying. On cases which the union has helped its members, most of them would be when we facilitate transfers. Sometimes a particular school environment or leadership may not fit the teachers and they need a change in their environment. When we move teachers to another school through the Ministry’s help, they actually begin to thrive again. A lot of teachers appreciate this help. While they can make an appeal on their own, they are not an institution like STU. When a union represents them, things get facilitated and this is the most important work as far as helping individual teachers is concerned.
What is your approach to resolving issues?
Keep it simple, direct and solve the issues in a straightforward manner. Be frank about issues and discuss them, not the people. Most of the issues are relationship issues at school level. Teachers may have an issue with the style of management in schools. Fortunately, most school leaders are good at people relationship. However, with more than 350 schools and more than 30,000 education officers, there are bound to be interpersonal issues.
What are the three takeaways from your involvement in union work all these years?
Always put your members and their needs first. Next, you need to earn the trust of people and it is not easy. And third, be humble as it is indeed a privilege to be able to serve.
What is it that keeps you going as STU President?
Passion, to see that we are actually contributing at both institutional and membership levels because we have 200 to 300 Industrial relations cases every year. For these people, if we are not around, nobody is going to help them. For the profession, there is the Ministry of Education and the National Institute of Education, but for the professionals themselves, we are the voice. The entire union landscape is changing with more PMEs..
