It has been long time coming — but even now that it is here, the real work of implementing career-path mapping and incentive schemes for teachers is only just beginning.
The R6,9-billion that was recently allocated for teachers’ salaries will be spent over three years. Of this, R2,7-billion will be used to settle backlogs in salary payments.
The remaining R4,2-billion will be used for a range of initiatives, including performance rewards and paid sabbaticals: R600-million in the first year; R1,4-billion in the second and R2,2-billion in the third year.
Firoz Patel, acting deputy director general for planning and monitoring at the Department of Education, says: ‘The idea has been to open up more career possibilities for teachers and to elevate the status of teachers. It’s also for them to have upward mobility, but to keep good teachers in the classroom and not make it necessary for them to move into management.”
Strategies to achieve this include the creation of new posts, such as those of senior education specialists and senior principal teachers, who will receive bigger salaries and greater recognition.
Patel adds that such posts will also come with high levels of responsibility and challenges, and only be granted on the basis of an educator’s proven track record.
Final proposals on the incentive- scheme programme still have to be presented to the national Treasury for approval, but they will focus on priorities such as boosting science and maths skills and directly rewarding performance excellence.
‘We are talking about a scarcity of skills geographically and in terms of the curriculum. So this could be about attracting teachers to industrialised areas or rural areas, but also just to schools where there aren’t enough good science teachers,” says Patel.
Incentives include payments for teachers’ development and further training or sabbaticals, and cash allowances for performance rewards.
Also on the cards is the creation of posts for auxiliary staff members such as full-time shop stewards and counsellors. The grading system for principals’ salaries will also be adjusted to account for the size of the school that a principal oversees.
Mary Metcalfe, head of the Wits School of Education, says on the balance the initiatives are welcome. But she stresses the need for a clear implementation process.
‘On the whole, the national Department of Education has presented a well-thought-out and comprehensive programme. Any programme that makes teachers feel properly supported, recognised and rewarded is a step in the right direction,” says Metcalfe.
She adds that teacher development will enhance the expertise of teachers and raise the overall quality of learning in the classroom. The new career-path mapping and incentive schemes also complement the thinking behind the Integrated Quality Management System for educator assessment and development. Teachers who do benefit from these initiatives should do so because they are deserving, adding credibility to the system.
Metcalfe cautions, however, that though maths and science have been singled out as areas of dire need in the country, the needs don’t end there.
‘It is a complex issue and dependent on many factors, but we do need a targeted look at specific areas and to respond to the needs in many other subjects too,” says Metcalfe.