This is an executive summary of Centre for Development and Enterprise report, Value in the classroom: The quantity and quality of South Africa's teachers, CDE In Depth no 11 September 21 2011

The government has announced bold measures to introduce accountability into the public schooling system. Launching the National Education Evaluation and Development Unit on 18 March 2011, the Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, stated: ‘When we mapped the Education Roadmap in 2008, we resolved to ensure the effective evaluation of all teachers based on the extent to which learner performance improves.'

CDE welcomes this initiative, and looks forward to its effective implementation. However, teachers should not become the scapegoats for a large and struggling system. There are good teachers in our public schooling system who deliver results against the odds.

In this context, CDE has examined the situation in the country surrounding teacher supply and demand. Its overall conclusion is that South Africa urgently needs more and better teachers.

The shortage of good teachers is a key reason why the education system is underperforming, particularly in scarce but vital subjects such as mathematics and science. Teachers play a central role in determining the outcome of any education system, and South Africa is no exception to this rule.

In order to explore these issues in greater depth, CDE asked four experts - Dr Roger Deacon and Professors Charles Simkins, Marissa Rollnick, and Karin Brodie - to conduct in-depth studies of the supply of, demand for, and quality of South Africa's teachers, particularly in respect of maths and science. This report summarises their work, and draws out some implications for education policy and strategy.

Teachers are poorly trained and utilised

South Africa is producing too few teachers, especially in key subjects such as maths and science. The teacher training system is producing about a third of the country's requirement of about 25 000 new teachers a year. It needs to produce about 15 000 more teachers a year, particularly in scarce subjects (such as maths, science, commerce, and technology).

Many of the existing teachers in these subjects are not teaching well, and are also poorly managed. This is partly because many of them have been badly trained. In one study cited by our researchers, 73 matric physical science teachers from South Africa's Dinaledi schools (which are provided with extra maths and science resources) were tested on basic problem-solving skills. Only 60 per cent were able to solve the problems involved.

South Africa's teachers are also often poorly utilised. There is a shortage of maths teachers, yet many qualified maths teachers are not teaching maths despite being willing to do so. Another study cited by our researchers found that 16 581 teachers in the Eastern Cape were qualified to teach mathematics, but only 7 090 were actually teaching mathematics, and only 5 032 of these had a mathematics qualification.

The teacher age profile suggests a looming shortage, and a growing need for greater numbers of younger teachers. More than two thirds of South Africa's teachers are older than 40.

While their formal qualifications have improved, existing teachers spend too little time in the classroom, and many teach badly when they do. According to government studies, many teachers often come late, leave early, spend only 46 per cent of their time teaching each week, and hardly teach at all on Fridays.

According to one official evaluation, only about a third of the institutions currently training teachers should qualify for accreditation, which - of course - has implications for the quality of their graduates.

Many talented graduate teachers either emigrate or take up other professions, resulting in a loss of thousands of teachers every year. A quarter or even more of all newly trained teachers do not take up teaching posts in South Africa's schools, deterred largely by low salaries and the poor image of the profession.

Although the government has increased its bursaries for student teachers in the past few years, this is insufficient to meet the country's needs. Far too few bursaries are being offered to potential teachers.

Too few candidate teachers are being trained in scarce subjects, which can only be remedied by more bursaries, and better and more diversified teacher training. Thousands more maths and science teacher trainees are needed. Special efforts are then required to retain these teachers - who have many other options in the economy and overseas - through improved working conditions and incentives.

South Africa is already benefiting from immigrant teachers, but some policy-makers and planners do not favour this approach, with the result that the importation of teachers is not properly planned.

Based on these findings, CDE has formulated the following pointers to improved education policy and strategy:

Teachers play a key role in determining results

This study has confirmed that the poor performance of many teachers is a major reason for the dismal results achieved by large sections of South Africa's schooling system. However, aggregates often conceal important points about variations by subject, for example. South African teachers as a whole are adequately paid, but is this true of competent maths teachers? South Africa needs to produce more teachers, but should this be done in all subjects, and by all the current public institutions?

More good maths and science teachers are vital

The biggest future demand will be for teachers in languages, maths (and mathematical literacy), commerce, life sciences, and physical sciences. The projected expansion of FET colleges will also require more good teachers in technical subjects.

South Africa is at or near the bottom of the world class in terms of student performances in maths and science. There is also much scope for improvement in other subjects relevant to the economy, such as technology and commerce. The availability and quality of teachers in these subjects is a key factor in poor student performances.

Given the scale of the challenge (hundreds of thousands of teachers, and millions of learners), one needs to acknowledge the limitations of producing, say, 1 000 more science and mathematics teachers through existing B Ed programmes, or placing 1 000 existing teachers in professional learning communities. Such efforts might help, but would not significantly improve the average performance of South Africa's body of learners.

Carrots as well as sticks are required

This raises the issue of whether teacher training in maths, science, and other specialised subjects; teacher improvement programmes; and teacher retention should be linked to market forces.

In his State of the Nation Address in February 2011, President Jacob Zuma admonished teachers to work harder. There is little doubt that many teachers (though not all) deserve this admonition. However, in the case of mathematics, for instance, carrots may work more effectively than sticks.

International experience suggests that performance incentives for teachers can work well.

For example, at a CDE Round Table on international experience of schooling reform held earlier this year, Paulo Renato Souza, former minister of education in Brazil and secretary of education in the state of São Paulo, reported that teacher upgrading and selective rewards were key to education reform in Brazil. Tom Boasberg, superintendent of the school system in Denver, Colorado, also reported on the positive results of performance pay for teachers, and similar experience has been documented in other cities and countries.

Selective rewards should be considered

CDE is not suggesting that all teachers deserve greater rewards. Many - possibly most - teachers are underperforming. Teachers in scarce subjects who are performing should be selectively rewarded. And prospective teachers in subjects most needed for economic growth and national development - selected languages, mathematics, science, commerce, and a new breed of vocational/technical teachers - should be better paid.

Teachers should not only be trained by public institutions

Another issue is which institutions should produce the teachers of tomorrow. Public tertiary institutions are currently producing about one third of the required numbers. The issue is not only whether they will be able to train many more teachers, but whether they will be able to train them well. For instance, if only a small proportion of formally trained maths and science teachers teach competently today, what does this say about quality control at the institutions that produced them?

The Department of Higher Education and Training is aware of the need to produce more teachers, and the pressure on universities in this regard is reportedly building. But can we rely solely on these institutions to increase the output of good science, mathematics and vocational teachers to the required levels? And can we rely solely on state-supported enhancement programmes to improve the quality of existing teachers?

The short answer is that we cannot. Moreover, many of the most talented graduates will continue to emigrate, opt for jobs at private or former ‘Model C' schools, or opt for other careers altogether.

Therefore, the challenge of providing enough good teachers to meet South Africa's current and future needs will not be resolved simply by bringing political will to bear on public institutions.

Market forces should be harnessed

Besides improving the output and performance of public sector teacher training institutions, market forces need to be harnessed. Much more work is required to determine how this could or should be done, but three principles stand out even at this early stage:

South Africa is spending enough on education; the problem is that this expenditure is poorly utilised.

If we are to get better value for our education spend, the economic laws of supply and demand, and associated pricing signals, should be brought to bear on this sector as well. We argue in favour of increased competition in other areas of state expenditure.

Why not apply it to this sector, where it is sorely needed?

Teacher training and retraining should be opened up to market forces. Private players and public institutions should compete for public funds.

Conclusion

Teachers are at the centre of South Africa's struggling school system. This report has examined the supply of and demand for teachers from a number of angles. It is clear that South Africa cannot continue to rely solely on current systems to train more and better teachers. Government as a whole, and the departments of Basic and Higher Education, have acknowledged that South Africa lacks sufficient good teachers, and have begun initiatives to fill this gap.

However, given the nature and scale of the challenge, the public sector alone cannot address this national need with sufficient scale, quality and speed. A new response is required, drawing upon the best of global experience as well as all our national resources, both public and private.

New teacher registrations, 2009/10

Source: C Simkins, Demand for and Supply of Teachers 2010 to 2050, CDE, 2010.

Issued by the CDE, September 21 2011. The full report can be accessed here - PDF.

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