OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Monday, 6.30PM.
DETAILS of an agreement between government and teachers’ unions on rationalisation and redeployment is expected to be made public within a fortnight, Education Minister Sibusiso Bengu said on Monday.
There are still “one or two matters” to attend to, he said, but is confident that redeployed teachers will be reporting to their new posts at the beginning of the 1999 school year.
Teachers’ unions threatened a national strike in June this year over the education department’s rationalisation policies, which allowed provincial education budgets to decide the number of teachers to be employed.
Bengu said agreements had been reached on all other issues in the June agreement, including classes without teachers, mechanisms for opening up the education budgeting process, amendments to legislation, and consultation on rationalisation and redeployment.
He also announced that a new teacher appraisal system, replacing controversial external inspections, will be introduced countrywide at the beginning of the 1999 school year.
The new system, based on self-appraisal and peer evaluation, is designed to help teachers identify their strengths and weaknesses and will not be directly linked to promotion and salary.
Under the plan, schools will elect staff development teams to co-ordinate appraisal of teachers by panels drawn from fellow-teachers, union representatives, senior staff and outsiders such as educators from other institutions. The teacher being assessed will sit on the panel, and, as part of the appraisal, draw up a personal growth plan.
Bengu told reporters that the new system was “first and foremost an instrument for teacher development”.
A national task team will work with provinces over the next few months to ensure that everyone involved with the new system is properly trained.
A spokesman for the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa, Archie Lewis, welcomed the new system as long overdue.