Teachers who repeatedly fail to turn up for work must be managed out of the profession

Good teachers make good schools. To improve education outcomes, we need to support and nurture them. And we require the right incentives to draw more people into the teaching profession and to help them to teach to their full capacity. 

According to the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) report "Value in the classroom," we have too few teachers and most are of too low quality. The Democratic Alliance (DA) agrees. It‘s a problem of quantity and quality.

On the quantitative side, far too few new teachers are entering the profession. According to parliamentary questions asked by the DA, only 6,000 are being trained up each year, though we require between 15,000 and 18,000. The profession is simply not attractive to university graduates, who could go into other fields and earn more money and social respect.

On the qualitative side, many teachers deliver low quality education to their students and they do not spend enough time teaching. According to the CDE report, South African teachers spend less than 46% of their time in the classroom and hardly teach at all on Fridays.

This is an abuse of our children's constitutional right to a basic education. Teachers who repeatedly fail to turn up for work without legitimate reason should be managed out of the profession.

To improve teacher performance, the DA favours a combination of "carrots and sticks".

This is why the DA-governed Western Cape has introduced performance contracts between principals, deputy principals and the provincial department of education to ensure that schools take responsibility for their education outcomes.

We also believe that teachers should be offered merit pay for achieving excellent outcomes. This not only recognises the great work done by good teachers, but encourages others to strive for the additional payoff for their work. This is a win-win scenario for teachers and learners.

The DA calls on Minister of Education, Angie Motshekga, to revive the discussion about teacher merit pay, which was championed by former education minister, Naledi Pandor. This is a good idea. It will draw more people into the teaching profession, knowing that they will be rewarded if they work hard. It will also raise morale and standards for teachers. This idea has merit.

Statement issued by Dr. Wilmot James MP, DA Shadow Minister of Basic Education, September 22 2011

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