MOE Teaching Scholarships: Committing to a Teaching Career Before University
By Muntasir • Published Sep 18, 2026 • Updated Sep 18, 2026 • Scholarships & Funding, Study in Southeast Asia
MOE Teaching Scholarships and Awards pay your full university tuition and a monthly allowance for a bonded teaching career of 4 to 6 years, plus a separate 3-year bond if you take the postgraduate teacher training course at NIE.
🎓 Bond: 4 years for local study, 5 years for overseas study in a non-English-speaking country, 6 years for overseas study in an English-speaking country.
The PGDE teacher training bond at NIE runs alongside your scholarship bond, not on top of it.
Scholarship holders get monthly maintenance plus a pre-service allowance and return airfare if overseas. Award holders get a monthly allowance without the extra pre-service payment.
📩 You must be a Singapore citizen at the point of offer and show strong academics, leadership, and communication skills.
What the MOE Teaching Scholarship and Award pay for
The Ministry of Education runs two full-term funding tracks for students who commit to teaching before university: the MOE Teaching Scholarship and MOE Teaching Award . Both cover tuition fees and other approved charges for the length of your degree. Scholarship holders additionally receive a monthly maintenance allowance, a pre-service allowance to cover setup costs, return economy airfare if studying overseas, and access to MOE development programmes and approved exchange or summer programmes. Award holders receive the monthly maintenance allowance and the same development and exchange opportunities, without the pre-service allowance.
MOE also runs an MOE Teaching Award (Undergraduate) for students already accepted into a local university course, and a Mid-Term Award for students partway through their degree who decide to commit to teaching later. Terms and allowance amounts differ by intake, so check the current year's award details on MOE's site before applying.
How long the bond runs
| Where you study | Bond length |
|---|---|
| Local university | 4 years |
| Overseas, non-English-speaking country | 5 years |
| Overseas, English-speaking country | 6 years |
If you go on to the Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) at the National Institute of Education, a separate 3-year bond applies. This bond runs alongside your scholarship bond rather than adding on afterward, starting once you begin trained service as a teacher.
Who qualifies
You must be a Singapore citizen at the point of offer and hold, or be on track to hold, GCE A-Levels, an IB Diploma, a polytechnic diploma, or an equivalent qualification. MOE looks for strong academic results alongside leadership experience, communication skills, and involvement in co-curricular activities, since the scholarship funds a career built substantially around classroom presence and student mentoring. Preferred subject combinations line up with subjects taught in Singapore schools: sciences, humanities, languages, mathematics, and social sciences.
What committing early means
Taking the scholarship before university locks in a career decision earlier than most other funding routes. You pick your degree subject with a teaching subject in mind, attend MOE development programmes throughout your undergraduate years on top of coursework, and know from day one that a fixed number of years after graduation, and after the PGDE, are already accounted for. This suits students who are confident about teaching as a long-term career. If you are unsure, the Mid-Term Award lets you make that decision after starting university instead of before, once you have direct experience of what the classroom demands.
When to apply
Applications open while you are still in secondary school, junior college, or your final polytechnic year, ahead of university admission, and results usually arrive before you need to confirm your university course choice. Because the offer and the bond are locked in before you set foot on campus, treat the scholarship interview process like a job interview for a long-term public-sector career rather than a routine funding application.
Weighing the bond against the alternative
A teaching bond removes the tuition and living-cost pressure that pushes many students towards part-time work or loans, and starts you in a stable public-sector career immediately after graduation. The trade-off is reduced flexibility during your 20s: switching to another field before both the scholarship bond and PGDE bond complete means repaying the funded amount. Compare the total years committed, 4 to 6 years since the scholarship bond and PGDE bond run concurrently rather than adding up, against how firmly you already want to teach before you sign.