By Amelia Tan

MORE than 7,000 teachers and support staff will be hired next year despite the slowing economy.

The Ministry of Education (MOE), which will aim to add 7,500 employees to its payroll next year, also plans to give the economy a fillip by speeding up its scheme to equip every school with an indoor sports hall by 2014 and to look into building centralised facilities for arts, music and sporting activities.

In addition, it will go ahead with plans to build six schools, which had been put on hold earlier because of spiralling construction costs.

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