Survey results indicate that because of gruelling work conditions and low pay, half of South Africa’s 370 000 teachers would like to quit. To highlight the daily treadmill of many educators, we asked a teacher at a large, reasonably well-resourced Johannesburg primary school to keep a diary of a typical day at the office. Rosemary Barrett — not her real name, as teachers are forbidden to talk to the media — is in her fifties. She has been teaching for more than 20 years, and has a teaching diploma and a university degree.
7am I sign the compulsory register, which records our times of arrival and departure. There are always plenty of earlier signatures: some teachers have been conducting parent interviews. If you don’t fit these in by about 7am, you have to do them after extra-murals, at around 5pm.
7.10am I stand guard outside the school grounds monitoring traffic flow and the efforts of the scholar patrol team. As parents drop their kids off, wildly ignoring pupil safety and traffic signs, there’s high-volume road rage — horn-honking, tyre-screeching, and expletives fired at the patrol team, other motoristsor me. People just don’t respect teachers any more.
7.25am The EMM (early morning meeting for staff) begins. A rush to get there before it ends at 7.40am, after making sure the scholar patrol team has packed up, the school gate is locked and stragglers are hustled along to their line-up point. At the EMM, we’re given paperwork to fill in — often before the first break — or read through.
7.40am The first bell rings, and the kids wait for the second ring at 7.45am for the start of school.
7.45am We’re still in the staff room. The EMM hasn’t gone smoothly: three teachers are off ill and no substitution teachers are available.Their pupils need to follow the substitution timetable, which means they join other classes — with predictable results for class sizes.
Teacher assessment is also on the agenda. At the beginning of the year teachers were confronted with yet another set of documents, described only in acronym-speak — the IQMS (Integrated Quality Management Statement). After a written self-evaluation, we’re assessed by a colleague and an immediate superior. Scores are compared, debated, justified and agreed, and the evaluation is sent to the Gauteng education department. The process takes several weeks.
At the end of this bureaucratic tunnel is a tiny light for the exceptional few who earn the required point score: a 1% salary increase. My net monthly salary is about R5 300, so R50 more is not to be sniffed at. Like other teachers, I’m still owed back pay from ‘notch progressions†that haven’t progressed since 1996.
Some teachers try to supplement their earnings: I’ve tried selling cosmetics and educational toys; given extra lessons at home to learners from neighbouring schools in English, maths and Afrikaans; and typed business reports and documents for friends. You have to tell the department of this.
7.50am Assembly: the hall is packed with kids, teachers and parents who’ve been invited to see their children get merit awards. Assembly runs 15 minutes into teaching time.
8.30am I spend the first 10 minutes of the 30-minute period sending kids from absent teachers’ classes off to substitution, filling in the register and collecting money for stationery and textbook orders. I check learner information forms, which carry personal particulars and contact numbers, and urge the class to go on the Walkathon, where the kids are sponsored for each lap they walk around the athletics field. The money raised will hopefully buy a new school bus.
8.45am Period three. The second — 8.15am to 8.45am — has disappeared because of earlier delays. My English lesson is interrupted by an intercom announcement that class photographs will be taken in the hall. Six kids on substitution arrive in the classroom, swelling the class size to 40. My class of 11-year-old boys and girls gleefully start preparing to face the lens. Combs and brushes appear and the disruption gives some of the boys the chance to practise postures and facial expressions.
9.15am The fourth and last period before first break. By the end of this about 140 learners have been in my classes since the day started.
9.45am to 10.05am First break. I have compulsory break duty — I patrol the playing field, megaphone in hand, bellowing reminders of out-of-bounds areas or that kids must use litter bins for sandwich wrappers.
One kid grazes his knees in the playground. There is blood and, as per policy regulations, I treat the injury protected by the single latex glove the education department issues every year to every teacher. One educator, one glove: evidence of the department’s confidence in teachers managing emergencies single-handed? (Well, we are multi-taskers.) Maybe they believe emergencies only happen once. Or are we supposed to rinse the glove afterwards and keep it for the year?
10.10am A few minutes into period five and the intercom orders learners and teachers to the hall for photos. There’s some confusion about people who are ill, as their classes are now scattered to other classrooms.
10.40am to 12.05am Once disrupted, the flow of teaching is hard to restore, and my classes limp along until second break. I try and give each kid individual attention. A ‘learning programme†is meant to cater for pupils with different learning styles and for those who are, and aren’t, coping. I have to record ‘amended teaching strategies†for individuals. Kids who are very advanced or disabled have different needs. When the term ends, more paperwork is needed to prove that ‘intervention strategies†have been carried out. Considering that a single lesson is just 30 minutes long, all the paperwork is a tough ask.
12.05am to 12.20am Break duty again. Luckily no medical emergency, so no need to find another latex glove or wash the first one.
12.20am Period nine, which is also interrupted, this time by a learner with a message from my department head. It’s a request for a list of possible book titles as recommended reading for the Readathon week in a month’s time.
12.45am A signal announces emergency evacuation drill practice. All learners file to a designated place, where the evacuation is timed and the tally of pupils accounted for.
1.10pm to 1.50pm Periods 10 and 11 take us to the end of classes — but I’m not off home.
2pm to 5pm Compulsory extramural duties: it is my turn to score for the cricket match. The visiting cricket team arrives and soon 22 under-nines are milling around asking for the batting order.
5.15pm Off home, with my basket and two sets of English books to mark.
7.30pm I finish marking and recording my assessments. I make a snack, catch up with family news and do some household chores.
9pm I set and type a short English test and a marking memo for the test, and check a colleague’s science test. This ‘half-day job†has been on the go for a while now, and continues this weekend. Three out of four of my weekends are taken up with school-related activities either at school or at home. There’s mini-cricket on Saturday mornings, and on Saturday afternoons I catch up with administrative tasks, like typing minutes of meetings or designing mark schedules. The education department requires an extra 80 hours a year from their teachers — unpaid. These hours are spent on in-service training and compulsory courses, often during school holidays.
10.30pm Can now get some rest … till traffic duty starts again tomorrow.