Teacher crisis in South Africa – government responds

[BusinessTech]

Teacher crisis in South Africa – government responds

The Department of Basic Education responds to claims that the country is losing skilled teachers as they move on to retirement.

 

[RedViking]

Clowns

 

[Kosmik]

Nope, plenty teachers , government just doesn't want to fund them or pay, rather cut or strangle pubic schools with funding cuts and less teachers than fill posts. Posts stay vacant for years and are terminated but hey, why fund it? Let the school and pupils suffer with trying to raise funds to pay for "locum" teachers and just drag it out more.

 

[Bewlen]

The state education system is broken.

The unions have killed primary and high school education a long time ago, and they will keep it dead. You might be able to fire a teacher if he set fire to the school, while beating a colleague to death with a machete, with heroin falling out of his pockets. All this while being recorded in 4K, of course. Otherwise, nopes.

The good teachers realized that, if they do their work to the best of their abilities, and deliver good results, they get burdened with carrying the non-performing teachers, resulting in loads of additional work. So now they simply aim for the middle ground, those results that will juuuuuuust pass as good enough. And so, the state of lowest common denominator has been reached. Ah, lovely.

The government thought that drowning teachers with admin will drag them up a couple of levels, with checklists coming out the noses, files that have to be kept at every turn and triplicate forms and planning everywhere for every teacher. Well, that backfired spectacularly. Interventions, parent communication systems, demerits, disciplinaries... you name it, they prescribed the administration for it. But then, the education department assessors realized that this was a LOT of work, and they don't reaaaaalllly want to do that much. See, when they arrived at a school that wasn't functioning optimally, they actually had to roll up their sleeves and fix the mess. But that is a lot of work... nah fam.... so what did they do? They only go to the 5% of schools that are functioning great, they take their admin.... and then give it to the non-functioning schools to copy! Genius!

It's broken. Accept it, or put your child in a private school.

30% FTW. Aluta continua!

 

[Quicks]

With the mentality of the masses, maybe burning down a few schools will fix it.

 

[Sarg3_ZN]

This is not a crisis for the government, if anything this will help to keep the masses uneducated and in poverty, which will make them easier to control.

 

[Dolby]

We're saving R15,000pm on school fee's with the SO being a teacher - so I'm happy about that

 

[ShaunSA]

We don't need no education!

 

[noxibox]

It is good to hear that South Africa has an oversupply of mathematics and science teachers. So the fix is simply for the government to hire them.

 

[AntiThesis]

Nope, plenty teachers , government just doesn't want to fund them or pay, rather cut or strangle pubic schools with funding cuts and less teachers than fill posts. Posts stay vacant for years and are terminated but hey, why fund it? Let the school and pupils suffer with trying to raise funds to pay for "locum" teachers and just drag it out more.

Pretty much exactly this. There's a formula that's used to calculate the number of posts a school gets. It's a closely guarded secret for the *exact* numbers but I've worked with the folks who have the large excel spreadsheet and helped to input the numbers. It works perfectly and recommends the exact right number of teachers per school.

Then on the day the figures get released, before the finalising of posts, someone high up in DoE will come in and simply say "Cut it by 15k posts" and walk out. Usually this is done to cover a loss somewhere else - like laptops given out and lost, tablet projects that "will definitely work and not be corrupt" etc. So then into the spreadsheet you go and you start hacking about until you've got the right adjusted figure.

We're saving R15,000pm on school fee's with the SO being a teacher - so I'm happy about that

It's the biggest benefit for teachers tbh. Though I'm glad they moved it to a rebate system rather than a straight discount so it's not a massive tax issue. I can understand teachers who don't have kids complaining that someone else gets 3 x R45k/pa free cash.

 

[konfab]

The state education system is broken.

The unions have killed primary and high school education a long time ago, and they will keep it dead. You might be able to fire a teacher if he set fire to the school, while beating a colleague to death with a machete, with heroin falling out of his pockets. All this while being recorded in 4K, of course. Otherwise, nopes.

The good teachers realized that, if they do their work to the best of their abilities, and deliver good results, they get burdened with carrying the non-performing teachers, resulting in loads of additional work. So now they simply aim for the middle ground, those results that will juuuuuuust pass as good enough. And so, the state of lowest common denominator has been reached. Ah, lovely.

The government thought that drowning teachers with admin will drag them up a couple of levels, with checklists coming out the noses, files that have to be kept at every turn and triplicate forms and planning everywhere for every teacher. Well, that backfired spectacularly. Interventions, parent communication systems, demerits, disciplinaries... you name it, they prescribed the administration for it. But then, the education department assessors realized that this was a LOT of work, and they don't reaaaaalllly want to do that much. See, when they arrived at a school that wasn't functioning optimally, they actually had to roll up their sleeves and fix the mess. But that is a lot of work... nah fam.... so what did they do? They only go to the 5% of schools that are functioning great, they take their admin.... and then give it to the non-functioning schools to copy! Genius!

It's broken. Accept it, or put your child in a private school.

30% FTW. Aluta continua!

It is broken because of government.

According to Statistics South Africa’s General Household Survey (GHS) of 2019, there were approximately 14,6 million learners at school in 2019.

https://www.gov.za/about-sa/education

Lets make that 15 million to account for some population growth and to account for kids who should be in school.

Education budget this year is R298bn. Education per child is therefore worth R19866 per year for the state. Now this isn't distributed equally, because 71.5% of children in schools don't pay fees, whilst the remaining do. But nevertheless, if the 71.5% of no fees schools took all the educational funding, it is still 10.7 million kids, which equates to R27850 per year.

My simple solution would just be to dissolve the dept of education and just allocate the money to parents directly. Parents registered on the birth certificates of the children pick a bank account that they want the monthly amount paid to at home affairs. Both parents sign an agreement that the money is to be used for education of their children and that is it. No further state involvement in education. That R19866 is R1656 per month per child. If you wiggle around the numbers a bit to make the amount less for people who earn more, you could probably get that to about R2k per month per child.

No national curriculum, nothing. If higher education want admission criteria, you write an entrance exam. If an employer wants to check whether an employee is qualified to do a certain task, they check it themselves. Universities can then publish the topics they want in their entrance exams and that is it. Ditto for employers. Eventually a market will form around this and you will have a curriculum that will do its job.

For the poorest people in society:

This solves so many problems it is stupid. If you have 3 kids, that is R6k per month. That is enough to get an internet connection and homeschool your kids. Which in a country that has chronic unemployment and poverty, it is a realistic option for most people. You get mother tongue education, access to the world's knowledge for your child's education and you put money in households that desperately need it.

Good teachers win as well, because they can form single teacher schools in their homes and take home much more money than what they would be able to get in the public sector. Low overheads on schools can solve a lot of problems. Median salary for teachers is about R16k per month. That means a teacher taking 10 kids in their home gets R20k per month. So you also get superior teacher-student ratios as an incentive.

For people who are already paying fees:

Private schools win as well because more people will have more money to send their kids to a normal school.

Parents are the people who care most about education. The solution is to trust parents with education, not the government.

 

[Kosmik]

I'm at one of these 5% schools but hopefully not for much longer.
Teachers from other schools in the area love us because they haven't been visited in years. One school hasn't had a visit in 12 years but our school is used as an indication that all the schools in the entire district are functioning.

Frankly the school visits don't benefit us. The week up to the days they visit are lost because of management's hysteria and the unnecessary triple-checking of files and paperwork. And the drama when the GDE finds something wrong like a teacher doesn't have a tablecloth on the cupboard at the back of a class ends with a follow-up visit or two.
They don't do anything with the information that's collected either. They found management grossly under-reported contact hours and violated sick leave policy. Last year 9 long-time GDE staff quit to take lower-paying SGB positions at other schools, or they left teaching entirely because of management. It's a big red flag that 1/3 of your teaching staff leave qt the same time. But as long as the paperwork is signed who cares.

That sounds more like school management vs GDE.

 

[grok]

Seriously, is there anything in this country the ANC hasn't puled throught their collective arse?

 

[ShaunSA]

Seriously, is there anything in this country the ANC hasn't puled throught their collective arse?

Patience young one. The Ramamessiah's New Dawn will be along shortly

 

[BuckRogers]

Seriously, is there anything in this country the ANC hasn't puled throught their collective arse?

Yes, private medical care.
It's next on the list.

 

[Acinixys]

The other issue is where the teachers are needed

My sister is a teacher and has been offered a few govt postings. But they are all in the literal bush or towns with 200 people in them surrounded by farms, and the schools are totally run down and dilapidated. Its no wonder no one wants to go.

It is a problem of their own creation for not caring for the last 20 years.

 

[rvZA]

AA and BEE killed the golden goose. South Africans need to accept this and learn to live with it.

 

[GhostSixFour]

We emigrated, my wife got her teaching qualification evaluated and is now teaching in NL. She is getting literal double her gross SA earnings for 3 days a week.

There is a shortage in NL. I'd advise any teachers teaching subjects like Maths, science etc to get their qualification sorted through duo and try to apply for roles.