Listening to SAfm this morning, I heard part of a phone-in discussion between the presenter and a representative of a company that has done research on the number of public schools as opposed to private schools in South Africa. The discussion focused, among other things, on the levels of responsibility and accountability encountered on the part of teachers at these respective kinds of institution.
At one point the representative of the research company remarked that a difference seemed to exist between the levels of responsibility between teachers at public schools, as opposed to those at private schools, with the latter showing greater responsibility than their counterparts at public schools. The reason for this — so the person from the company that had conducted the research opined — was because teachers at private schools, who were paid less than public school teachers, were more concerned about losing their jobs than public school teachers, and hence, acted more responsibly by turning up regularly for work and performing their teaching duties more adequately.
I have no disagreement with that argument in the terms used — I believe she was right about the difference that “job insecurity” makes on the part of private school teachers. The presenter sagaciously remarked that “this raises serious questions” about our public schools. To be sure it does, but such questions cannot be addressed adequately unless the societal context within which teachers of all stripes work in South Africa is taken into consideration.
For one thing, what the perceived difference between the two groups of teachers implies, is that potential loss of salary makes a huge difference in the way you discharge your duties as a teacher, and not really a sense of duty or dedication to your “job”. Correct. I would suggest that this is related to the difference between experiencing it as “just a job”, or as what used to be (and in some circles still is) known as a “vocation”.
But the real question lurking behind these things is this: in what kind of society is it the case that private school teachers display greater responsibility? And is “responsibility” even the right word here? My answer would be: in a society that has come to valorise money above all else, and no longer the kinds of values that go hand in hand with choosing a profession such as teaching because of a deep desire to impart knowledge and other humanistic values to the youth of a nation. Ergo: it is not really a sense of “responsibility” (in the encompassing sense of being concerned about the well-being of the pupils in their charge) that such private school teachers show, it is merely a fear that they would be summarily dismissed unless they turn up for work regularly.
But let me substantiate from a different angle. One may well ask why public school teachers do not hesitate to stay away from their duties for various reasons, the current one being that many of them are on strike because of a salary dispute. Regardless of my belief (which I should make clear at the outset), that teachers ought to be paid decent salaries, and that they therefore appear to have legitimate grounds for “industrial action”, I also believe that there is plenty of evidence — confirmed in this morning’s discussion programme — that a large percentage of the country’s public schools are “dysfunctional” even under “normal” circumstances.
This lamentable condition is overdetermined, in other words, more than one “cause” contributes to it. One cause is, I believe, that, given the valorisation of money-wealth in South Africa today, public school teachers are generally more interested in salary parity with other sectors than in the specificity of what their jobs require, which used to be subsumed under the term “vocation”. Instead of a vocation, many teachers in the public sector display a sense of entitlement, for which they can, in at least one respect, not be blamed, namely that every avenue of social and economic activity around them transmits the same message, “loud and clear”, that money is all that matters. (Many people engage in corrupt activities, regardless of the risk that they will be found out, for the sake of getting their hands on all that lucre.) They therefore feel understandably entitled to a substantial piece of the cake — government leaders have set the example for them, after all.
There is a second cause, related to the first one, but more fundamental, which bears on the lack of a true sense of community in South Africa (something more enduring than the media-manufactured sense of national “solidarity” during the World Cup). To understand what I mean by this, I have to digress somewhat.
When my children were young, and we were living in the United States (in New Haven, Connecticut), they attended a public school charmingly called Worthington Hooker (no, not a reference to what they were taught there; it was named after a person by that name). It is a wonderful little school where they were given a varied and interesting education, and parents did not pay any school fees — unlike public schools in South Africa, as far as I know, and not merely Model C schools — despite which they were even given a meal at the school every day. Noticeably, the pupils were taught in a manner that cultivated their independence, together with a sense of community with the other pupils and staff in the school.
Concerning this independence, I recall dropping a warm jacket at school for my elder son one day, only to be told by the teacher (a statuesque black woman who was working at her desk while the pupils were gathered in small groups, talking softly while working together on a project of some kind) that she had sent him to the school library to do some research for her. Arriving at the library I found him at a table, several reference works in front of him, busily writing down whatever he was looking for in the books. He was 10 years old at the time.
Regarding the sense of community, I recall the way in which the teachers and all the pupils, joined by some parents, formed a long line on Halloween evening, all bedecked in grisly costumes, and walked through the neighbourhood singing appropriate songs, to the great delight of onlookers and those who lived there. Further, that their sense of community stretched as far as giving a boy from South Africa (my elder son) the honour of reading the United Nations Charter aloud before all the pupils and teachers on International Students’ Day, to show him that he, together with other pupils from different countries, was welcome there.
This is what I mean by a sense of community — cultivating a sense of something shared, something worth being loyal to, regardless of what you are paid. In her book, The Shock Doctrine, activist-journalist Naomi Klein reconstructs the dire social situation in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Among other things, she refers to the schooling situation before and after the devastating hurricane.
Before Katrina, there had been 123 public schools run by the school board; after Katrina only four remained — the rest of the public school system had been auctioned off and replaced by privately run charter schools (before the traumatised city population could recover sufficiently to take preventative action), of which there had only been seven before the storm, but grew to more than 30 afterwards.
Moreover, the approximately 4 700 public school teachers were all fired after the storm, although some younger ones were re-hired by the charter schools, but at lower salaries than they received before. As Klein points out, charter schools are hugely controversial in the US, because many people claim that, because they are privately run for profit, their advent has reversed many of the costly civil rights (including the right to equal education) won by the public at an earlier stage, especially for poorer people.
All indications are that the public school system worked well in New Orleans before the blow delivered by Hurricane Katrina, and that pupils were given a good education, regardless of where you went to school. Needless to say, the sense of community cultivated by this, has evaporated with the arrival of charter schools, both because of the exclusion of most experienced teachers, and given the unexpected financial difficulties faced by poor parents.
Expat South African friends of mine, who lived in Brooklyn, New York (at the time we lived in New Haven) often extolled the virtues of the multiracial school where they sent their children, given the combined effort by teachers and parents, to make of the school — situated in a poor area of Brooklyn — an educational resource of which they and their children could be proud. Being a public school, they did not pay any school fees either.
The difference in their case, as in mine (in New Haven), was that the teachers and parents were in agreement about the goals of the education they wanted for their children, and the teachers were dedicated to these, to the point of accepting their responsibility for it. This is quite ironic, given that the US is known as the paradise of capitalism, but my experience there has taught me that they have something else, too, that we don’t have here (yet), and that is a strong sense of community, especially in a localised form.
This is why (judging by the radio discussion mentioned earlier) private schools in this country can use money in the form of salaries as a means to get their teachers to work — and from the testimony of a graduate student of mine who works at one of these schools, private school managers know how to squeeze blood from a stone where teachers are concerned.
From experience, I know of several Model C schools in the city where I live, where a spirit of community, comparable to what I experienced in the US, does exist. But more broadly speaking, until a sense of a common ethos, and a commonly shared set of educational values were to emerge in this country (at least minimally, and I don’t mean the shallow emulation of “information-society” goals), the understandable entitlement-to-more-money attitude among especially public school teachers, as indeed among employees in other (largely public) sectors of society, will persist, effectively blocking the development of a strong sense of accountability.
Bert,
Your analysis has the ring of truth to it. And it suggests a point of convergence between community support for quality education and teachers for whom teaching is a profession/vocation rather than a job. Where these values coincide students receive a quality education.
Where they diverge, we have the spectacle of teachers ‘raiding’ schools to evict students, nonstriking teachers being threatened with violence, and ‘sympathetic strikers’ (males in balaclavas!) grabbing (female) students by the hair, throwing them to the floor and assaulting them. How is such behaviour justified by the need to make a point to the government (even one that has squandered billions) that public servants of all stripes deserve more pay?
As a teacher I railed equally against exploitative administrators who worked devoted faculty into exhaustion and negligent faculty whose only interest in their jobs was collecting a paycheck to be spent on extended holidays offered by the university academic year. Such people might be understood for putting time with their families ahead of all else but that did not excuse them from doing the best job they could during term.
As everyone knows great teachers are rare but all teachers should at least be capable of practicing professionalism: holding oneself to a high standard of performance, not permitting personal preferences or biases to over-ride one’s impartiality in the class/lecture room, and setting fair and credible standards of performance for students.
Bullying, threatening, or intimidating students should be grounds for dismissal. Permanently.
The fee-paying parents of children at private schools cough up very substantial sums to have their kids there. They obviously earn big salaries and must occupy positions of responsibility, power and importance in their workplaces. They naturally expect and demand high standards from their own kids as well as from the teachers of their kids, and will withdraw their children if this demand is not met by the teachers.
And private schools maintain esprit de corps, a sense of communion and they take pride in their overt elitism because they ARE special. They DO weed out their serious misfits and rebels to protect their ethos, which the parents and compliant pupils appreciate and value. Timmy the school bully, or Mary the drug-addict are shown the door lest they contaminate the wholesome atmosphere parents pay very big bucks to get for their kids.
You CAN buy it with money. It DOES have market-place value. And your kids rub shoulders daily with virtuous qualities like ambition and high expectation and excellence. It’s all good, isn’t it?
I attended a private school and i can assure you that not one of my excellent teachers was doing it for the salary. every single teacher did it out of a love for teaching at this showed in both the schools results and in all other area’s of the school. the teachers were all involved in not only teaching but running extra curricular as well as sports coaching. to suggest it is merely money is insulting. maybe the private schools teachers are better because the schools identify this trait in their staff and so hire them , using among other things the salary. Also the pupils at private schools are not likely to miss school, be late etc etc, perhaps this also makes a difference
Bert, I have experienced the kind of community spirit that you refer to among Americans. Earlier this year (in April) I was in Philadelphia in the US, at a market, when members of the Philadelphia Opera Society (apparently spontaneously, in ordinary clothes, but probably planned) started singing the famous ‘Libiamo’ (from La Traviata?), while moving around among the crowd that was there. Needless to say, the people loved it, and showed it in their applause. That kind of thing emanates from community spirit, and reciprocally, fosters it. My question would be: one might expect that in an African country such as SA, famous for its spirit of Ubuntu, there would be an even more pronounced community spirit. What has happened to it in the teaching profession?
There is no way that a parent paying R200/year is likely to have his child educated as well as the parent who pays R20 000/year and that’s the common disparity in prices between semi-rural/township schools and ex Model C schools in SA today.
I nearly bankrupted myself sending my son to the better of the two, but saw no sign from most of his teachers that he was learning the sense of community you speak of; most behaved like complete idiots, their only fear: Little Hitler the headmaster, who was equally officious and downright stupid.
I completed the bankruptcy process by using my one-third pension payouts to send my son to Australia for a year on an exchange programme, obviously with the benefit of brilliant subsidies offered by the international organisation, which in his case, covered tuition and living costs in and by Oz. He learnt a tremendous sense of community there and what he learnt in a single year has stuck.
These days, teachers are no more than suppliers of a commercial product and it’s our fault if we don’t hold them to being good ones; not an easy exercise, but it would certainly warm my heart if some of those parents who can’t even afford the R200/year would hold their neighbours and teaching suppliers, accountable.
Huh? Go ask a Bishops or Reddam teacher what salary they are receiving …
Maybe I stand to be corrected on this, but I have not heard of a country where teaching is a particularly lucrative profession. A teacher without strong dedication is bound to be disgruntled and one gets the impression that there are thousands of teachers in state schools – particularly previously disadvantaged ones – that do not have a suitable disposition for this vocation. Reports of large scale teacher absenteeism is certainly indicative of this. Whether this would change with reduced job security is an interesting question. Of course, not too much can be expected if parents are not openly appreciative of teacher dedication and if there is no moderate bonus for a job well done. The latter is probably anathema to the unions. South Africa budgets very generously for education but manages to get the least bang for the buck. Why?
There seem to be few things more exhilirating and convivial to our country than striking. How manifestly this comes across in the nightly headline news over TV, as another gyrating tide fills the screen.The collective happiness, joy and sheer energy tell it all. Excitemnt, comraderie and innovative choreography abound, right up to the predictable delivery of demands. (And offstage the next group awaits, as sure as a ministrel festival, and as if they were the first).Providence, or Whoever,could scarce be more cruel than take this soulful pleasure, so dear to many hearts, away. When it is married to ‘justice,’ entitlement and other inscrutable virtues, well then, what greater delights can there be? God’s truth is marching on!
It is an easy leap of logic to extend your final sentence to read….”leading to a complete breakdown of the work ethic in the public sector and failure of the state.” I think that many people see this as an inevitable consequence of current trends.
I do not believe that many of the people employed in these dysfunctional schools are actually teachers in the context of any globally accepted definition. By extension, SADTU is not a trade union. It is a malignant political force bent on destroying the educational prospects of millions of young mainly black South Africans
Hi Bert
Firstly I disagree with your researcher iro salaries. As a teacher I know for sure that teachers in ModelC and Private school earn more than the average teacher.In some cases the salary advice might contradict this but these teachers collect cash at the end of each month that takes their salary up ,way above the salary of the average teacher.
Private schools and Model C schools attract better quality of teachers because they pay more. Also teachers who underperform are simply kicked out-so these taechers work harder and are not prone to striking.
These conditions have attracted better quality children whose parents can afford higher fees thus .This has also helped in these schools getting better results in matric.Further children who attend private and model c schools also get private tuition after school. A sure recipe for success.This does not distract from some quality teaching.
@Bert – the difference that you speak of exists, – have experienced it at both private and public schools. I would like to offer a different eplanation of this trend than just money. In any profession that requiress a long and arduous training course those who become qualified have invested a lot of time and money to qualify and obviously ,as in all other professions, there is stiff competition for the prestigious (not necessarily higher paid) jobs. Enter the ANC and much shorter, superficial and cheaper teacher training courses and we now have teachers who knows very little about teaching, which must be very frightning and frustrating for them, and therefore have no loyalty to their profession since it brings them little fulfilment. Striking for more money, I hazard, is simply a way to get this dissatisfaction across. They can hardly tell the govt the real reason, which is that they lack the skills to do the job and are therefore incapable of performing as they should. Educatiom should be free, of a unformly high standard with teachers that has at least a HED. The other big problem still is the large amount of uneducated grownups. All efforts are concentrated on the children whose parents have no idea what their children need and are losing control of the situation.
Siobhan – Good point: ‘And it suggests a point of convergence between community support for quality education and teachers for whom teaching is a profession/vocation rather than a job. Where these values coincide students receive a quality education.’
Mark – Perhaps this issue, raised by Siobhan (quoted above) is what differentiates between some private schools and others, like the one you mention. By the way – if you had read carefully, you would have noticed that I was responding to, and problematizing, the research company representative’s opinion, that the threat of non-payment is probably what makes private school teachers behave as if they are more responsible. Glad to hear that there are some which are different, though – I believe that Siobhan is right about the reasons for that.
Maria – Good point about Ubuntu. The answer, I believe, has to do with the way in which the valorization of money (which has to do, largely, with self-enrichment) breaks up formerly strong community bonds, which used to be articulated in different terms, i.e. not those of money = ‘economic usefulness’. To spell that out, one would have to resort to Lacanian-Kantian vocabulary.
Having been associated for years with a member of the “education fraternity”, I have seen this person going from dedication to learners in High School, helping some of them to become very successful in later life to moving into frustration as she climbed the ladder of the education path. The two latest positions, one as head of Department in a renowned SA university, the other as director in one of the Provincial education departments, have been the most frustrating as -generally- staff dedication is seriously lacking and attendance would be unacceptable in any business environment.
Internal politics cover up for the missing performance (the “what” you know/do vs “who” you know issue) while performance appraisals are generally manipulated along those lines and thus a joke.
Getting rid of non-performers in government seems impossible as they spend most of their time to creep the right backside.
Such attitudes at the top of the education ladder will necessarily filter down to the lower levels, resulting in the phenomenon we see today on the streets.
The relevant unions have done very little to encourage their members to do their jobs with dedication before asking more money. Instead, the unions have been able to hinder or block regular inspections at schools as an infringement on “privacy” or “human rights” of the teachers.
SA will experience the results of this lack of dedication and management in the next decades when this cohort of students hits the job market.
cont’d: We have heard of the “lost generation” in reference to the students who were encouraged to fight for “liberation before education”.
Today’s generation has the “liberation” but seems to prefer “remuneration” over “education”. Extreme poverty might become their fate. I do hope not to be around when it happens.
I am teaching in a public school. Salary is not the only contributer to the poor performance of the plublic schools. Our learners have no interest in education. The reason is that they are from homes where most of the community is not educated. So the value of the education is not fully known by the community. The community does not know the role they have to play in the education of their pupils. Educators have to play both parents and educators roles. That is too much for educators.
I believe that teaching and nursing are fundamental to society and begins in the home. If an ethos of respect for education is learned in the home then you have a chance of a better student. Many issues are neglected here. Mothers nurture children from birth and the more educated the mother the more likely the child will be eager to learn. Children become what they live from birth to 6 years. Educate the women who missed out because of unrest and your society will improve. How can a mother who works as a domestic and has only Grade five assist her child who has progressed to Grade 10 in something like Mathematics. I actually have educated my housekeeper and she still struggles to assist her children. One has to have resources and time and also do more than cram knowledge into people’s heads. Overpopulation, urbanisation mechanisation and technology all are vital tools for both teachers and nurses. Education works on an accrual basis. Both these professions are not highlu rewarded so they are not highly sought after because people have to eat and live as well. How can one expect a teacher to give of their best when they can’t afford to eat? Numbers play a huge role and we need incentives to attract more teachers, not computer geeks or engineers. The only way to incentivise in these costly times is through financial rewards.Community plays a role too and time is also a factor.
Funny that you should mention Halloween. At the public school my kids attended, they were taught that Halloween is from the Devil and that they should not make friends with children of other faiths. That was the last straw (of many)… my wife and I decided to remove them from that school. They are now at a small private school where a much down-scaled and far less paranoid form of religious education exists. They seem to be much happier there. PS the teachers at the new school did not go on strike at all!
Bert your article box’s thousands of teachers; private/state, white/black/brown into a narrow negative box imposed by yourself, shame on you. I have interacted with hundreds of teachers/education for over 30 years and the overwhelming majority are decent dedicated good teachers and just as important good people.
Your article equals and plummets the depths of Govts attitude, that one bribed journalist makes all the media crooked. Perhaps you should go and meet a few teachers who struggle like most of SA and still make a difference in spite of a terrible education department, who by the way should be the brunt of your comfortable armchair intellectual moralising.
Next time write an article that uplifts us all showing what is good and positive about our beleaguered education system and thus be part of the solution and not part of the problem.
Brent
Why should teachers feel a vocation to teach, when the students don’t want to learn? Job satisfaction comes from knowing you are making a difference, knowing that what you do is appreciated.
Kids already know that gaining skills and knowledge is going to put you in some dead end job, being the “worker” while the “player” with ANC contacts gets the contracts and 80% of the profits without lifting a finger. You’ll work til you drop, and get taxed to death.
Education used to be valued as the path to status. You invested in the years of learning because you knew it would bring respect and at some point a good living. Today education is a liability, keeping you in the trenches. The rich and high status people in South Africa don’t have an education. They are the role models for the majority of township youth.
When education itself is not valued, why should the people who provide it be considered valuable.
Bert
Thanks for your article. A point well made and politely illustrated
To expect such a positive communal fusion to occur in RSA as in USA,presupposes that teachers and community members share common values other than, entitlement or xenophobia
Sadly the transition from the apartheid regime to the current education quagmire has left us value-impoverished, bereft of those foundational moral values upon which strong nationhood was built, commitment was forged, honesty extolled,integrity respected and Society uplifted!
While the history of our education systems is checkered, pre-1994, children of all races(although fewer in numbers)were taught within a system where teaching was a vocation where teachers saw themselves laying a foundation for future generations, by personal example, through their vision,selflessly sharing knowledge,performing honest hard work and putting pupils before profit(salary)?
Where once in SA, the title of “teacher” was widely respected, today it is scorned.
Today(although in greater numbers) pupils are more likely to be “educated” by an ever increasing number of avaricious impostors, having; a thin veneer of respectability, an even thinner qualification(who in between bouts of toy-toying for their “demands”to the accompaniment of vuvuzelas “freedom-songs” and the ubiquitous ‘Lethu mashini wami….presume to be teachers.
While SA Education(and Society)continues its slide into the abyss of parochialism and the appeasement of the lowest common denominator…the so-called people-on-the-ground,one must pray for enlightenment before education will be possible
Is this perhaps the commentator you refer to? Ann Bernstein at the CDE?
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=117733
Naomi Klein – the less said the better. Not only does she often get simple economics wrong but she writes mostly emotional tripe with little care for fact or nuance.
See this short critical review of the “Shock Doctrine” – I have left out the numerous reviews that critise in detail her understanding of economics and history from Stiglitz, Norberg to respected institutes and journals. It is good summary of the typical stuff she produces.
http://www.nysun.com/arts/shock-jock/63867/
Private schools work better because it is simple and straight forward. You get paid to do a job (which could be “just a job” or “calling”) and if you do it poorly you get fired. The CDE’s point is that often there are more community involvement in such setups and less burdensome regulation that disempower students and parents.
In the public sector you get to claim entitlements, perform poorly without any real consequences and have no incentive to improve/innovate/deliver in order to beat the competition.
It has little to do with money and more with competition.
Why is it always that lefties want to reshape man or social engineer society in to some “ideal man/society” that doesn’t exist (and never did)?
Even more troubling is that most intellectuals cannot even see the inevitable logical outcome of such “good intention” policies…
Only people that are overpaid and underworked have time to care.
Consider that school teaching is the lowest paid hard work in the world. Nurses could presumably bury their patients, police persons could ‘lose’ their dockets but you can’t put kids in a filing cabinet… or can you… You will find out during the strike.
This weird idea that you have that so called “teachers’ should do their job for free because they have this strange quality called ‘vocation’ is almost quaint in a 19th century way. The average teacher works a six week month for two weeks pay. This is the 21st century and there are now a huge range of choices open now to young people and fewer are choosing this appallingly abusive occupation that is, frankly, akin to slave labour. Not recommended.
I would rather my children do anything rather than become teachers. The stress is unbelievable, the economic penalty is massive; rather choose law, engineering, bookkeeping, plumbing even hairdressing: all more lucrative and equally vocational.
Only someone who is completely out of touch with reality would think that money is not the most critical component of existence … with it good life… without it, as McCawber observed: ‘misery’.
I am absolutely certain that a two million a year investment banker, or anyone else doing the worlds highest paid hard work has a sense of vocation that outshines any puny efforts of teachers.
What you should all be considering is why we have any teachers at all?
I believe that the biggest threat to education in New York is – the teachers’ union. Many parents are sending their kids to charter schools for this reason.
In SA we have a generation of teachers who were taught “burn dont learn” by leaders who sent their own kids to top (overseas) schools and universities. Their peer-group parents are no different, being indifferent to their children’s education and not instilling an ethos of discipline and study.
In the Western Cape we have a thing called public schools on private property. These are schools that were once private church schools who could no longer afford to pay teachers and continue to teach poorer children. The governing body posts are very much lower paid but necessary otherwise class numbers would be unacceptably high. All the teachers are dedicated and responsible. There is little or no appreciation for their work, either from the children, the parents or the state. Insead more and more demands are made and less resources made avaiable. Teachers before they can begin to teach any subject matter, need first to deal with the concerns of the children including; their hunger,lack of adequate clothing, lack of basic parenting, lack of emotional support or stability, serious developmental and psychological problems etc. Education is the development of the whole person within a community. The school community consisting of the children and staff are often the only true community the children who attend these schools know. Parental involvement is minimal and the teachers are equired to assume both parental and educational responsibilities. I am a teacher. Yes it is a vocation. It is also a profession. It is time that the “education” that seems to be so important to people for their children translated into remuneration that is equitable with other professions, as well as the provision of appropriate resources for real education to occur in all schools.
So, a philosophy professor now takes it upon himself to comment on the teaching profession. Well, Bert, et al, teaching is a profession not a vocation. There are good teachers, bad teachers, good schools, bad schools, just as there are good doctors, bad doctors, good philosophy professors etc.
Sadly, teaching is a profession that does not regulate itself. No indeed, we are subject to the whims of our political masters (state schools), or to Boards of Governors (independent schools). Actually, Bert, there’s a difference between private schools (usually for profit) and independent schools (usually non-profit or church owned).
Were teachers left to manage their own schools and curricula there would not be costly bungles like Outcomes Based Education. Thank heavens, independent schools could ignore OBE and get on with the job of learning and teaching.
Scarce resources would be properly allocated; vast bureaucratic armies at provincial education departments would be shredded. If government was to fire two thirds of “non-teachers” in education departments it could afford to pay teachers properly. Certainly, they achieve little and have small impact on the schools they purport to serve.
Thanks, Bert, in the unlikely event that I ever want to study Aristotle or Descartes, I’ll give you a shout. In the meantime your shallow burble and cutesy-pie little halloween stories do not help. Teachers do care – very deeply; that’s why we’re still in this difficult, complex and very demanding profession that you dare to trivialise.
To say that remuneration in relation to workload and performance should not play a part in creating a spirit of commitment and dedication by both teachers and teachers in tandem with parents is completely unrealistic. In South Africa many Model C schools are less affected by strike action because “community spirit” and “dedication” is heavily bolstered by hard resources (money) put into the process by parents. Teachers are still paid less, but working conditions in those cases are much much better – that must make being “dedicated” easier. Staff feel valued by the parents. I challenge anyone to look at the comparative resourcing of schools in the USA. Our government prioritizes Soccer; GauTrains; Foreign PeaceKeeping; Military Toys; and Political Glitz over Teachers, Nurses and Police Staff. The USA has lots of money, but I firmly believe that if they were much poorer their government priorities would still favour schools and teachers over frivilous, unnecessary or foreign expenditure. So look at that comparison with the USA… Then this article suggests teachers in SA should feel “committed” and be “dedicated” – why should they? When it is pretty clear the SA government doesn’t actually give a royal? Yours Michael.
I was schooled at public schools, primary and high, deep in the rural areas of Limpopo. Through out my years at high school, senior students(Grade 10 – 12) were always given extra lessons on weekends and over the winter holidays, teachers were payed nothing for that. I must also say, we had morning lessons for our core subjects everyday before actual lessons started and if needs be, we were also offered more classes late in the afternoon. These poor teachers stayed away from their families on weekends and over school holidays to ensure that we got a sound understanding what they were trying to teach us, they wanted to make sure that we got good marks to get us varsity entrance. All these was done at no extra costs to us.
The time came for me to go university, and the work that I, together with my educators put paid off, I got university entrance, unfortunately during my second year at varsity I had to drop out because my mother who has nigh 30 years teaching experience could not afford to pay university fees for me, that means I had to seat at home and do nothing. After scraping together a college diploma, I must say after four years experience, I take home double my mother’s perks, who has been teaching long before I was born, and we want to seat here and say it’s about salaries, if you go to the townships on Saturdays, you’ll see school
The difference between the private and state schools lie in leadership. There has been a complete absence of leadership in government for some time now. From Mbeki and Zuma down through ministers and DG’s, regional MEC’s and principals at the schools. They are ALL too busy fighting, jockeying for position, running other jobs, partying, indaba-ing and generally just too “busy” to run a decent show. This fish is rottten from the head and there is no easy fix.
Another meaty article! Yes, one only recognises later in life just how one’s school(s) fostered a sense of shared goals, mutual contracting, usually of an informal mature, and an approach of’we’re-in-this-together.’This approach was driven by largely intelligent educators who saw beyond the ordinary layman’s perception. By contrast the public education set-up now hardly has any ground beneath its feet.Even the buildings and properties, of the public kind, have a spiritless and desolate look about them, devoid of real educational community and soldiarity.
I have issues with the way the strike is being done. My heart hurts for the students whose lives are being damaged by the strike. But asking people to do such a demanding job for so little is wrong. People need money to live. The teachers on not striking in order to afford things like a BMW, they are asking for a liveable salary – maybe a tata?
Teaching and nursing are women dominated fields. The old fashion idea that women worked for the “extra” income – therefore it was okay to pay nurses and teachers less, is outdated. Women are often the sole source of income for their families. They should be paid well for a job well done. If the job is not being done well…then this too, should be looked into. But asking people to work for little out of sheer loyalty, is also wrong.
That, however, does not make the current actions of strikers right. We are lucky, my son’s school is full of teachers who feel too guilty to strike. But that indicates even further why they deserve higher pay, not less.
It’s sad to read how badly the USA is now treating both students and teachers, because though they have trillions to spend warmongering, they are cutting back on the education budget; less school hours/days, teachers losing jobs = the dumbing down of society … Just like we have money for stadiums and ministerial privileges …
What we are being told about how or system will be ‘fixed is also a total lie – here isn’t the capacity to teach Foundation Phase kids in mother tongue.
While I deplore the violence, I do understand the frustration that our teachers experience, and not just about the money. The whole thing is a shambles.
I think teachers do care, the only who don’t care is our gorvnment. teacher must be the people who earn more money than anyone, their job is much more important than anything in the world. we will end up having more failers in our school if gorvnment do not do any means to help teachers.
Oh dear – There are more than the usual number of misinterpretations of my intentions among these comments. If it was not apparent from this piece that I am on the side of teachers – I taught English at a high school before moving to university teaching, and found it very fulfilling, if demanding – let me make that explicit. It is because I am as concerned about the state of education in SA as some of the people who have commented, that I wrote it in the first place, spurred by what I found to be incongruous remarks in the radio programme I referred to. I certainly did not mean to ‘trivialize’ school teaching, and I have the highest regard for teachers who do their work under what appears to be – judging by some of these comments, as well as by what one learns from other sources – an increasingly difficult set of circumstances. If I have offended any teachers, that was never my intention. I was trying to make sense of that radio discussion. What is clear, however, is that teachers in SA work under dismal circumstances in many, if not all, schools, and that the situation is in dire need of improvement. Perhaps teachers should make use of every possible avenue that they can to bring this to light, not only by responding to my post(s).
From a personal point of view , I am not sure if I understand the dynamics of the strike:Are teachers badly paid? Compared to whom? How much are they really worth?
I am a Deputy Chief Education Specialist (with a masters degree in science education and an honours degree in Chemistry) I have occupied this rank since 1992 and I have not been promoted since.(Meantime many less qualified and possibly less competent people but certainly politically connected have been promoted to directorate level and above .
HOWEVER With OSD I have seen my salary jump by R100K per anum to half a million per anum ( above the bottom scale for a Chief Education Specialist). at the beginning of this year.My wife , head of department of long standing has also seen a fairly substantial jump in salary with OSD (and she now gets more than many Deputy Principals and possibly more than some principals.)
We hear many “sob stories ” from teachers who say they are getting “peanuts ” after years of service. What are their qualifications? What are their achievements? Do they have genuine grievances or are they comparing themselves to the politically connected in management with huge salaries? Is this whole strike based on genuine grievances or is it a ploy by SADTU to topple the Zuma government using public servants as pawns?
@ Bernard Dylan
I second the sentiments of this submission: subject that you are incorrect that the Independent schools avoided OBE. No one was permitted to. The Independent school system was never able to mount the intellectual opposition to OBE that it was remembered for during the apartheid era.
The staggeringly nitpicking bureaucratic fussiness of fulfilling hosts of criteria and legions of skills level questions spread out equally over over a series of so-called ‘learning outcomes areas [all inherently sensible, educationally sound, but unfortunately inherently impractical principles], should be completely mechanised and handled online.
This is the destiny of this generally sound developmental concept. It is a system designed for the exclusive elucidation of talented, well loved,regrettably frequently affluent/wealthy children.
Those who promoted it had the best of intentions. Those who adopted it the best of motives… Sparks got the point right empirically. This is not a local problem though. Try teaching in London sometime. The ‘Proles’ reject learning.
Instead of waffling vacuously over this comfortable,smug, politically correct topic, try meditating on the implausibility of unilaterally expecting an entire teaching corps to change everything they had ever learned about their jobs without any training. Changing the job specification without changing the compensation. Ask yourself: What in fact does an institution that exists to develop children really know, about Transforming adults. Is it possible to transform adults who don’t care about their children…
Think about Pol Pot: morality… Give us something original and useful can’t you.
The problem underlying it all is two-fold. Firstly, a common sentiment: those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. That statement shows how little teaching and teachers are valued. The second is the difference between training and education. Most people confuse the two. Very few people these days are interested in education, which implies the development of critical thinking, not necessarily in a vocation-specific direction, and not tailored to “getting a job.” Most people are only interested in being trained to undertake a job that will provide them with money. I have met many an ignorant lawyer and accountant in South Africa, but they would consider themselves “educated.” I think it is also harder to be eduated in a multi-cultural environment, because ultimately it is also culture-specific at a certain level. In more advanced societies, training will only get you so far (open the door), after which you will find that a lack of education holds you down. But South Africa is too backward for that level of development to be manifest. In conclusion, and to draw this together: teachers themselves are not educated in South Africa, merely trained. And trained people (in this sense) generally do not impart learning for love; rather, they do it for money. The society that supports them does not care for education either. This is a world-wide issue, but more blatantly obvious in South Africa.
Do we as a society care? If we do we should make sure that our teachers, our policemen and our nurses are well looked after. It is all about priorities – and we sadly seem to have them all wrong?
Bernard,
I’m with you. Bert typifies the type of academic that is out of the classroom and school system but likes to pontificate as to how it should be done. That is how SA got OBE – from people who were essentially academics, highly qualified but with minimal or outdated practical skills. I believe that if government butted out and left communities and teachers to manage their schools, things would be a lot better.
The reality part 1:
Educators are striking for better pay and are unhappy with the government bands of remuneration. To date there has been no change in status of the strike and a power struggle has ensued.
Just for the record: a starting educator salary is more than R9000 per month. I don’t consider that an appalling salary for someone who has just qualified; which led me to contemplate the reasons for the anger about salaries. Bear with me as I share some of my stories.
I don’t believe that the anger is around salaries per se. I really do believe that teaching is a calling and many were driven to study for a profession which used to be honourable and promoted as a profession worth having. The reality is that I get told regularly by SADTU chairpersons and educators that they would never ever consider this profession for their children; and that they would get out if they could. In fact many of the educators are so depressed that they ask me regularly to find them other jobs. They are so traumatised by the circumstances they find themselves in that they hate being educators.
Brent
Part 2:
Another story from a rural area: the province where this story is based “lost” R22 Million last year which had been destined for spending allocations in the schools. This particular school has 538 learners. They range in age from 6 to 16 and are in Grades R to 7. They function from 4 rooms; no electricity; no running water and no toilets. The learners walk 5 km on a busy road to the school where they are taken care of by dedicated educators who are committed to teaching, as best they can. 6 classes are held outside under trees (read scrubby scrawny twigs with no shade). There are not enough desks nor chairs; and many of the learners have to stand. The temperatures in this area are severe: in winter it snows frequently and then the learners (especially the little ones) don’t come to school as they will have to stand outside for hours in the biting winds and with no protection from the elements. Blackboards are shared and there are not enough of these. There is no room to cook so although there is money for food for the learners (the only meal some get); they eat bread and jam. A hot meal in winter would sustain them. The headmaster is a passionate man who has been writing to the provincial authorities to have them declared a Section 21 school from a Section 20 so that they
Part 3:
can use the budgeted maintenance money to purchase desks and chairs or build a toilet block instead. (Section 20 schools are allocated budgets for the year based on strict line items so maintenance money can only be used for such). After all what is the point of a maintenance budget in a school with no facilities to maintain? The DoE then takes this money back as it was not used in the budget year. The headmaster would rather use this maintenance money for things they need more. For the 4 years that the headmaster has been requesting this change nothing has happened. And the learners continue to go into the veld surrounding the school for their ablutions; where there are not many bushes and cars fly by on the busy road.
How about money which is allocated to a school for paying bills? It’s August and the money has still not arrived at the school. They have had their telephone cut due to non payment and are now no longer able to communicate, send or receive faxes or contact Departments of Social Welfare. They resort to using their personal cellphones and limited airtime or travelling to the nearest DoE office to use their phones.
Go for the root of the problem, the politicions and rubbish running the show not the teachers.
Brent
Part 4, Cry the Beloved Country:
I highlight these 3 incidents to share my views that receiving 8.6% more on their salary and a housing allowance of R1000 is not going to alleviate the stress of educators who listen to daunting and traumatic stories from their learners daily; nor is it going to help the frustrated educators and headmasters out there who cannot win against the bureaucracy despite their most earnest efforts. Perhaps R1000 more per month with a housing allowance may make them feel more affirmed for the immediate future but is it going to give them job satisfaction in an environment where the levels of stress and trauma are so high that many educators are depressed or burnt out?
On the other side of the coin; I have met some phenomenal people who work within the structures of DoE who work very hard to make life better for all. They too are devastated by the strike. They are now seen as the monsters when not so long ago they were on the other side. Reconciling their emotions and loyalties are so difficult. Many of them were leaders within the unions and identify strongly with the ideals of the unions but are now considered management and are vilified. Is money going to fix this?
I think not.
Brent
@ Richard2
“… teachers themselves are… merely trained. And trained people … generally do not impart learning for love; rather, they do it for money. The society that supports them does not care for education either…”
Excellent point. The ‘standardisation’ of mass education has meant trading depth of understanding and intellectual maturity for ‘easily measured’ acquisition of ‘skills’. All societies need skilled people but they also need people whose perspective goes beyond the immediate concerns of economic life to the ‘whys and wherefores’ of human existence and how those considerations affect the entire world.
Education is not just the amassing of ‘information’ or ‘knowledge’ , it is about constantly questioning the things that are ‘taken for granted’ in each generation: the unquestioned values that are assumed to be set and unchanging. We need people who understand that nothing is ‘set in stone’ in a universe that is in constant flux. Change accelerates as new ways of doing things appear, leaving little room for reflection on the meaning and implication of each new development. We need educated people to fill that analytical role and pass it on to the next generation. But you can’t teach what you don’t know so teacher Education should be the goal. “Teaching skills” like how to do ‘lesson plans’, use technology, manage student behaviour, involve parents, etc. are NOT enough. Teaching is not a mechanical process. It takes both depth and breadth of learning to do it well. The violence of this strike suggests SA has very few teachers.
@Brent: I think you are right in saying that money will not solve the problems. The strike ,imho, is the opening of a larger power battle between the conservative/liberal branch of the ANC and the Socialist/Communist branch.
The strike is more and more beginning to look like a battle between these two branches. Signs of that?? There are no serious negotiations taking place between parties. Just hardening of attitudes. (remember Thatcher and the unions in the UK some decades ago?)
The tripartite alliance should crack on this battle field unless Vavi cs can (1) be pacified with a larger share in the spoils of the current power arrangements and (2) they are as corrupt as the liberal wing just using the workers for their own good.
If that is the case, we will have to wait for the next round where the real workers stand up and really go to war as in the French and the Russian revolutions.
We live indeed in interesting times. Still wondering why Zuma is currently in China and will not go to the UN meeting.
@Brent – Excellent!
The extent to which South Africans are uneducated (even if highly skilled or trained) is very much evident in a city like London. Although I do not live in London, I visit there fairly frequently, and the absence of South Africans at “places of education” (art galleries, museums, and the like) is very noticeable. Of the Commonwealth contingent I have come across Australians and New Zealanders, but almost never South Africans. They are well-represented at sporting events, and professional forums, but events that require a “life of the mind”, sadly not. This is a reflection on the way they are brought up, and the values that their society imbues. Maybe that is what separates leaders from followers. South Africa may be destined to remain a nation of followers, functionaries, whilst the decisions are made by truly educated people abroad. India is in a similar position (very well-trained but not always well-educated), but the population is so enormous that there are sufficient educated people to keep the ship moving forward. What has kept the West on top in this post-colonial world is its ability to contextualise knowledge and events, which allows for planning and overcoming future obstacles. This is what places like South Africa have lacked post Jan Smuts, relying first on narrow “kragdadigheid” (force) and now nascent coercive communalism in which power’s only meaning is retaining the exclusivity of access to the honey-pot. True education is actually anathema (always has been)to SA’s leaders.
Interesting piece. My comment is just a bit off topic, but I wanted to write because interestingly I’ve lived/worked in all the places you mention and had pretty direct contact with those schools too.
I just wanted to put out there that the reason for the charter experiment in New Orleans schools is precisely that those schools were functioning terribly before the storm. And saying terribly is putting it lightly. While it’s still too early to tell whether more federal dollars or the charters themselves are the reason, the trend appears to be reversing.
So I think you’re onto something generally in this piece, but using the charter movement to illustrate that point, particularly in the case of New Orleans is inaccurate. Many parents in New Orleans are quoted as saying that the charter schools have actually fostered more community (easier to appeal to an independent school than a callous and distant school board) and made them feel empowered in their child’s education. There may be a good lesson in that for us here in SA.
@Richard 2: Sad, but true, that SA’s leaders have a vested interest in having people with ‘skills’, but no true, critical ability, combined with knowledge (to resurrect appropriate terms used by someone else in this debate). However, fortunately for us, there are still people about with just that kind of critical ability and knowledge, such as Bert, Adriaan Basson (of Amabungane) and several of the other contributors on Thought Leader, as well as some of the people who comment on their posts, like Siobhan. In fact, I believe, there are still too many of these intelligent critics of the governing party around for its liking, hence the mooted Protection of Information Bill and the proposed Media Tribunal. Anyone who has any knowledge of the process characteristic of the development of fascism should take note: this is how it happens – it starts small, with apparently defensible promulgation of new laws in the service of good public order, and then slowly escalates to the point of tight state control over virtually all aspects of social life. We could be headed that way…
The question “do teachers care” goes to the heart of what education is. In practice, OBE has stifled the creativity of teachers and alienated them by forcing them into micromanagement activity: endless rubrics and demands for rigorous assessment according to prescribed outcomes dictated by those above. This has suited a particular group of teachers very well: those who uncritically accept top-down, authoritarian dictatorship with submissive obedience and demand the same from their learners, those willing to carry out the bidding of their masters; mostly in private schools with small numbers of students and hence vast amounts of time and space to fill with meticulous, fastidious judging and assessing activity: teachers with a predisposition for obsessive-compulsive, controlling approaches to teaching. Teachers who enjoy taking full responsibility for the learning of students, rather than cultivate a desire for learning in students. Teachers who indulge in a sense of false omnipotence claiming credit for good performance rather than cultivating genuine, learner-centred responsibility for learning. This is held up and praised as the model and the standard against which the failures of the masses of bewildered and confused teachers is judged. It seems significant to me that the words education and seduction are similar. (Latin ducere “to lead” ex-ducere “to lead out, towards, into” and se-ducere “to lead away from, towards, into”) Perhaps it is because at root, both activities are concerned with drawing out or leading towards desire, love and care. Unfortunately OBE has ignored and neglected this.
OBE has ignored this deeply essential aspect of Education. OBE seems concerned to lead students and teachers towards obedience and uncritical acceptance; towards mechanistic acquiescent performance regardless of desire. Most gratifying for the little group of teachers described above who behave less like seducers than enforcers of compliance. I believe it is this that teachers are resisting as much as issues around salary.