Enabling Factors to Enhance Teachers’ Career-Long Well-Being

Studies have found strong correlations between the quality of teachers and student learning. Teachers who are professionally competent and contented can provide safe and encouraging environments that promote healthy and holistic learning. One important aspect to this correlation is teachers’ well-being (TWB). While significant research and active promotion of TWB exists internationally, literature is scant regarding what affects TWB across different career stages. This is of great concern, especially in the unprecedented and challenging double incursion of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on a research project in Singapore which sought to determine possible enabling factors of TWB via the aspects of professional identity, competence and commitment, this chapter explores factors that may influence TWB and posits that factors differ for teachers at different career stages, which may include the personal, positive work relationships, professional dignity, opportunities for growth, sense of professional safety, sense of competence and career progression. Regardless of locality, TWB cannot be understated as teachers are the frontliners of education and lynchpins on which the well-being of our children and their communities rest upon. Global policymakers, school leaders and educators may find the systemic- and school-level implications applicable to their contexts.