There are few things more important to the sustaining and regeneration of our economy, our society and our democracy than a radical improvement of the quality of education in South Africa. At the heart of improving quality in education is the imperative of deepening the quality and confidence of the teacher corps.
But we must also have an adequate supply of well-trained teachers who are committed to reversing the perilous state of quality in our schools.
Alarming indications of shortages
On the basis of current teacher attrition patterns, the annual requirement to replace teachers leaving the public school system is 21 000. A more realistic estimate would be at least 25 000. We are seriously short of this target. Estimates of the annual national production of teachers vary — but it is probable that we currently produce in the region of 8 000 new teachers annually. There are alarming indications of specific shortages, even without the much-needed planning information that would allow the disaggregation of demand into specific learning areas such as maths and science, or IT, or the arts, or of demand in the various learning phases.
What we do know is that young African school leavers are not entering teacher-education programmes in the numbers required. Of newly qualified teachers, 80% are white, and 66% are white women. While these are needed, without substantial increase in African enrolment there will be difficulties in the foundation phase (grades 1 to 3) where teacher competence in the languages spoken by learners is essential.
Risk at rural schools
Rural schools are also at risk. 74% of newly qualified teachers have completed their schooling in an urban context, 13,9% in a peri-urban/semi-rural area, and only 9,7% in a rural area. It is important for work to be done on incentivising teaching in rural areas. These are the areas most disadvantaged in terms of education quality for a variety of reasons including socio-economic conditions.
Conditions of service issues are related not only to salary. The rural context means teachers do not have the same access as their counterparts in urban areas to housing, and transport can be problematic. It is important to recruit teachers who have a commitment to work in rural areas — accepting that life choices do change over time. Perhaps we should incentivise a perspective on the career development of teachers which encourages a breadth of education experience across a variety of contexts — including rural contexts.
Falling confidence in teaching as a career
Several factors have contributed to the decline in African participation in teacher education. The perception of unemployment among qualified teachers is key, as is a negative view of teachers because so many schools have lost the respect of the communities they serve.
This loss of confidence in teaching as a career has some roots in erroneous perceptions of an over-supply and consequent unemployment of teachers. While in 2002 only 15% of all unemployed had a tertiary education, 28% of the “degreed” unemployed had tertiary qualifications in education, training and development.
In the 1980s there was an increase in teacher-training capacity with the establishment of many new teacher colleges in both urban and rural areas. Teacher education was a major access route to tertiary education, a key “deliverable” for apartheid’s Bantustan leaders who had limits imposed on their provision of university education, and a way of channelling (or even attempting to co-opt) the aspirations of youth.
The myth of oversupply
This expansion and oversupply in the early 1990s had huge consequences for the new government, which inherited a large number of unemployed, poorly qualified teachers, many of whose professional experience has now been bypassed by the major post-1994 curriculum changes. This has seriously distorted perceptions of the employment value of an educational qualification. This must change as the inevitable supply crisis takes hold.
The political pressure of young qualified teachers seeking employment in an era of rationalisation induced in the authorities a sense of an endless supply of qualified teachers. In addition, provincial departments have battled with the complexities of educators needing to be redeployed from schools where they are in “excess” of post-provisioning norms. The suggestion of a need to train new teachers was seen as a ludicrous invitation to add to the burden of the problem of oversupply.
But there is not an endless supply of teachers — the artificial glut of the early 1990s was short-term. In the absence of full-cost bursaries or loans, rational choices may have been made to register for courses which provide better long-term returns for the investment and sacrifices made by the student and her family. Traditionally, the recruitment of teacher students has depended heavily on the availability of full-cost loans or bursaries — typically tied to a service contract in which graduates are required to teach or repay the bursary. Many able students over the years have been initially attracted to the profession because their circumstances required state-subsidised higher education.
It is essential that this trend be reversed with an influx of capable young people who wish to make a difference to the lives of children, who believe that they can reverse the mediocre performance of schools, and know that this will make a difference to the social and economic trajectory of the country. The country does need teachers. There are jobs for young people who want to make a difference.
The department of education has this year launched the Fundza Lushaka service-linked bursary scheme, which provides attractive full-cost bursaries for teaching students in scarce skill areas. This funding is additional to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme’s earmarked funding for teacher education based on the financial need of the student. This is an important step that must be marketed to attract the most able and committed young people to compete for places in teacher training.
Ensuring quality education
The professional preparation of teachers now takes place exclusively in the higher education sector. While this has resulted in a retraction of the extensive teacher college network and its geographic reach into a more urban-based delivery, with negative consequences for access, it has had important implications for intellectual quality and the status of the profession.
In terms of intellectual quality, new approaches to the curriculum and its responsiveness to the competitive knowledge economy require teachers who are confident in exploring new ideas; who are intellectually curious; who have a solid basis of pedagogical content knowledge which they continually interrogate; and who are confident in their capacity for critical engagement with ideas. Teachers who will excite the imaginations of learners are needed from the foundation phase to further education.
The purpose of a professional preparation of teachers is to build intellectual and pedagogical depth within the subject areas in which the teachers will choose to specialise, as well as an understanding of the context in which education occurs. Media headlines highlighting problems in schools are but a window into problems in the communities served by our schools.
The preparation of teachers requires the development of an understanding of the social and institutional context in which the teacher will work. Effective teacher preparation requires immersion in an experience of working as a teacher, support in this experience and thorough reflection on the experience. The best teacher education programmes will require that student teachers work in schools and are carefully supervised and guided by their professional seniors in doing so.
The criteria of commitment
We cannot achieve excellence without excellent teachers. Our most promising and socially conscious young people who want to make a difference to our future must be encouraged to register for a degree in education and must do so determined to combat mediocrity (or worse) in schools. They will need ongoing support from the authorities and the communities they serve if they are going to have the impact needed. Performance surveys consistently show that South African children are seriously underperforming — we are simply failing to access the rich intellectual potential of our young people. Only 5% or so of matriculants passed higher grade maths and science in 2006.
These poor results are a consequence of very poor foundations. In the education department’s 2001 national grade 3 systemic assessment, the average score for numeracy was 30% and for literacy 54%.
Proposed solutions are necessarily multifaceted, but the centrality of improving teaching and learning is self-evident. Improving teaching and learning depends on improving the confidence and commitment of teachers. The confidence of teachers is built on the depth of their pedagogical content knowledge, as well as having access to appropriate resources to mediate learning. Commitment comes from the work of teachers being appropriately valued, respected and supported.
Not only must we draw the most capable and committed of our young people into this career, but we must also provide and reward opportunities for serving teachers to improve their knowledge base, and to critically reflect on their experience while we address the deficiencies in the contexts in which teachers work.
A model of continual improvement
The most crucial investment required in education today is the provision of challenging, credible and high-quality learning opportunities for serving teachers across the country — a formidable challenge given capacity limitations. The National Framework for Teacher Development released for comment by the education department late in 2006 recognises this.
The South African Council of Educators, in which teacher unions have the dominant voice, has resolved to require educators to continually upgrade their professional knowledge and has begun a process of requiring educators to accumulate a portfolio of professional development activities.
Tertiary institutions, through the Higher Education South Africa education deans’ forum, are committed to providing interventions which recognise and build on what teachers bring, and which deepen knowledge and understanding in a way that impacts on practice and improves teaching and learning.
If these interventions can take place through the urgent, sustained and carefully planned cooperative strategies of these interlinked stakeholders, with the leadership of teacher unions being fundamental, we may be poised to make a substantial impact on the energy and enthusiasm that a reinvigorated teaching force will bring to the task of providing quality education for all. Few tasks are more urgent.
Mary Metcalfe is the head of the University of the Witwatersrand’s school of education