South African Education Minister Kader Asmal has maintained a tough line on what he calls “double-dipping” by teachers serving his department — indicating that they should not receive favours in cash or in kind from the public.
At a briefing prior to his budget vote in the National Assembly on Tuesday, the minister said the Education Laws Amendment Bill — which was a draft Bill published for comment — “only confirms a public service wide principle that has existed pre- and post-1994, which is that public servants should not receive favours”.
“Those who are opposing this legislation should explain why it is alright for teachers to receive additional payments for doing their regular State paid jobs, but not other public servants.”
The Bill was necessary to prevent the abuse and corruption which was happening at present, said the minister.
“There are principals and teachers who are getting excessive perks, including overseas trips and free cars, paid for from school fees.”
However, those who have read the legislation — which was significantly fewer than those who have commented on it — would see that the legislation “does not preclude the possibility of additional payments to teachers”.
This would be for “genuine” additional work, beyond the expected hours — which he said was seven hours of teaching time and 1,5 hours of other work time.
“There should be no additional reward for work which the department has already paid for. We are committed to equal pay for equal work and insist there should be no double-dipping.”
In terms of the draft Bill, school governing bodies will have to apply to the provincial department to give teachers extra pay or benefits.
Asmal said any additional perks should be transparently determined by the school governing body and not be the result of “some closed cronyism determined by the principal”.
“The amounts paid should be reflected in any financial statements and not hidden under some ‘sundries’ heading. In cases where these criteria are met, there should be no reason for a province to refuse permission to the school governing body and the educators to give and receive additional income.”
He also said his department was in discussion with teachers about possible incentives relating to teaching posts “but the direction of these would be to offer incentives for teaching in ‘hardship posts’ — rural and townships posts which are having difficulty in attracting qualified teachers”.
“The current top-ups work against such moves and therefore compromise our efforts to achieve equity.” ‒ I-Net Bridge