Teacher salaries must be cut in half

  • Thread starter Thread starter Newsday
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He argued that South Africa’s public servants are overpaid, underworked, and ineffective, and are putting pressure on the economy.
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If anything teachers* are underpaid.

*Excluding any involved with Roodt's education.​
 
Maybe people should listen more, and be outraged less. This is not a new line of thought from Dawie, he has said if all before, but the emphasis is being put on the "headline" statements instead of listening to what he is actually saying the last few lines of that article is where the important stuff is hidden:

He explained that South Africa spends a large amount on education, but the quality of education is among the worst in the world.

“If you plot this on a scatter graph, you see that our spending is very high, but our quality is very low. We aren’t near the 45-degree line where most countries sit,” he said.

“We spend a lot on education and other items, but the quality is poor. That is the real problem, not money.”
 
You mean cut salaries in a profession where there is already a shortage of personnel, sure that would help. You have people queuing up to teach where their lives are put in danger, no respect from pupils or parents, getting blamed for the pupils failures for a pittance.

He lost the plot.
 
Zellephant said:
Maybe people should listen more, and be outraged less. This is not a new line of thought from Dawie, he has said if all before, but the emphasis is being put on the "headline" statements instead of listening to what he is actually saying the last few lines of that article is where the important stuff is hidden:

He explained that South Africa spends a large amount on education, but the quality of education is among the worst in the world.

“If you plot this on a scatter graph, you see that our spending is very high, but our quality is very low. We aren’t near the 45-degree line where most countries sit,” he said.

“We spend a lot on education and other items, but the quality is poor. That is the real problem, not money.”
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There's no way to rationalise "let's pay more to get more teachers" which will end up being LOWER quality. There are a BUNCH of other places with irregular expenditure in government that could be sorted out (like ghost workers, tenderpreneurship etc etc) and that resultant money can be used to boost the education system.
 
Zellephant said:
Maybe people should listen more, and be outraged less. This is not a new line of thought from Dawie, he has said if all before, but the emphasis is being put on the "headline" statements instead of listening to what he is actually saying the last few lines of that article is where the important stuff is hidden:

He explained that South Africa spends a large amount on education, but the quality of education is among the worst in the world.

“If you plot this on a scatter graph, you see that our spending is very high, but our quality is very low. We aren’t near the 45-degree line where most countries sit,” he said.

“We spend a lot on education and other items, but the quality is poor. That is the real problem, not money.”
Click to expand...
When Dawie opens that trap of his... my ears automatically close
 
Zellephant said:
Maybe people should listen more, and be outraged less. This is not a new line of thought from Dawie, he has said if all before, but the emphasis is being put on the "headline" statements instead of listening to what he is actually saying the last few lines of that article is where the important stuff is hidden:

He explained that South Africa spends a large amount on education, but the quality of education is among the worst in the world.

“If you plot this on a scatter graph, you see that our spending is very high, but our quality is very low. We aren’t near the 45-degree line where most countries sit,” he said.

“We spend a lot on education and other items, but the quality is poor. That is the real problem, not money.”
Click to expand...
He has a simplistic take on a complicated problem, almost like he is a politician on the campaign trail, playing to the gallery (i.e. civil servants are lazy and overpaid).
The amount per student is definitely not the highest in the world.

In which fairytale land has it ever worked that you halve an employees salary and expect him to double his perfomance?

There are lots of other factors that contribute to the low quality education besides teacher salaries - is the curriculum still suitable and relevant, poor management, lack of security at schools, infrastructure, lack of books, computers, lab equipment, the home environment of these children and the attitude of the students towards their education.
 
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Zellephant said:
Maybe people should listen more, and be outraged less. This is not a new line of thought from Dawie, he has said if all before, but the emphasis is being put on the "headline" statements instead of listening to what he is actually saying the last few lines of that article is where the important stuff is hidden:

He explained that South Africa spends a large amount on education, but the quality of education is among the worst in the world.

“If you plot this on a scatter graph, you see that our spending is very high, but our quality is very low. We aren’t near the 45-degree line where most countries sit,” he said.

“We spend a lot on education and other items, but the quality is poor. That is the real problem, not money.”
Click to expand...
Yes, we have many government departments spending vast sums of money on salaries. It's also true that there are a few that work very hard and a lot of free-loaders hanging on for the free paycheck. Until we have a system in place (I'm sure it's there, just not used) to weed out the useless, things will never improve.
 
I hear what everyone here is saying - but also see sense in what Dawie is saying - especially once you look past the clickbait headlines.

But let's just be honest with ourselves. The number one problem with education in South Africa is SADTU - and it's because of them that teaching as a vocation has been flooded with useless freeloaders.
 
Lil'juan's class mate is doing practicals (staying with us for the next few weeks) at Northview: a chaotic day care with a side of learning. It is not far off from scenes of Dangerous Minds and add a very South African twist.

Teachers actually need support staff with the amount of paperwork they are supposed to do, before giving a minute of lecturing and classroom/children management (was done during COVID by EPWP workers).

Like many of the former Model-C schools, things like pools and courts are filled in, paved over or turned to grass because there is no money (fee deliquency is a thing). The sad side is the nice private schools also offer salaries below government salary scales and no benefits.

Solutions:
Actually build schools, particularly in the no-fee/low fee areas where they are sorely needed.
Have sufficient staff with support
Parents that actually parent, not feign love (for their unplanned mistakes) and neglect the basics of learning
 
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