Jamus Lim questions MOE cut to teaching aides, reiterates call for smaller class sizes
Jamus Lim has renewed the Workers’ Party’s long-standing call for smaller class sizes, while questioning the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) decision to scale back a group of classroom teaching aides.
In a Facebook post on Friday (6 Feb), the Sengkang GRC Member of Parliament (MP) said the Workers’ Party has been “championing the need for smaller class sizes for the better part of the past two decades”, noting that the proposal was already included in the party’s 2006 manifesto.
Source: Jamus Lim on Facebook
Smaller classes improve engagement, says Jamus Lim
Mr Lim cited research indicating that reductions in class sizes — particularly from 40 to 30 students, and at earlier grade levels — are more clearly associated with improvements in student achievement.
Even where academic outcomes may be less definitive, he added that the benefits for classroom management and student engagement are “less contested”.
“As a teacher myself, I can attest to how much better I am able to get my students involved in classroom activities and case studies when the room had 20 instead of 40 bodies,” he wrote, adding that this applied even to “otherwise motivated university kids”.
Source: Jamus Lim on Facebook
EdTech and AI cannot replace human teachers
While acknowledging arguments that advances in education technology (EdTech) and artificial intelligence (AI) could help to personalise learning, Mr Lim said such tools ultimately fall short as substitutes for human educators.
“The science of cognition tells us that humans are wired to learn best from another human, not a screen,” he wrote, adding that EdTech should be viewed as a supplement rather than a replacement for teachers.
He noted that immediate reductions in class sizes are often deemed infeasible due to resource constraints and difficulties in hiring teachers, an argument he said he does not fully accept.
However, he proposed an interim approach.
Source: Jamus Lim on Facebook
“One intermediate solution: ramp up teaching aides,” Mr Lim wrote, adding that this would improve the ratio of “human educators to human learners” while longer-term changes are worked out.
He pointed to Allied Educators in Teaching and Learning (AED[T&L]), a group that previously supported teachers in classrooms, and described MOE’s decision to scale back these roles as “puzzling”.
Source: Schoolbag website, for illustration purposes only
MOE says workforce reshaped towards priority areas
In a parliamentary reply published by MOE on 23 Sep 2025, the ministry confirmed that it had been scaling back AED(T&L) roles while expanding other Allied Educator groups.
MOE said it had been “reshaping our workforce for priority areas like special educational needs, socio-emotional support, student support, and outdoor adventure learning”.
As a result, roles such as Special Educational Needs Officers and School Counsellors were expanded, while AED(T&L) positions were reduced.
Source: Jamus Lim on Facebook
The ministry added that AED(T&L) staff had been supported over the past nine years to transition into “roles in areas of greater need”, with most moving into “meaningful alternative careers within MOE and the Public Service”.
Awaiting further moves from MOE
Responding to MOE’s explanation, Mr Lim said that while the expansion of special needs and counselling roles was welcome, “these aren’t substitutes at all” for classroom-based teaching aides.
He said he raised these concerns in a supplementary question to Education Minister Desmond Lee earlier this week, adding that he believed both were “on the same page when it comes to our diagnosis of the way forward”.
“We await further moves on the part of MOE,” he wrote.
MS News has reached out to WP for more information.
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Featured image adapted from Jamus Lim on Facebook and Ministry of Education, Singapore on Facebook, for illustration purposes only.
