Education Problems in South Africa

Administrators fight while kids suffer

Mike Roberts

The worsening education problems being faced by children in South Africa has not been improved by the latest potential dispute over teacher’s remuneration packages. An article in the local media on 7 Sept states that the education department wishes to prevent schools from spplementing teachers’ salaries out of their funds in deserving cases as this is in fact discriminating against poorer schools who cannot afford to do so.

It is a fact that your wealthier schools have better facilities and consequently attract better teachers than do schools in poorer communities. What I fail to understand is why the education department should now wish to penalize these schools and risk them losing the top quality teachers. Will this contribute to an improvement in the education standards overall? I do not think so. The teachers that will lose out as a result of such a move will not move tothe more disadvantaged schools. They will either be snapped up by private schools that do not fall under the direct control of the education department or they will leave the profession altogether. In either case education standards will suffer as a result. Where is the benefit?

If the education department is so worried about the standards at the poorer schools, why does it not do something proactive to attract better quality teachers rather than just continue to provide new facilities all the time. New facilities without properly trained and experienced staff to administer them iks just a waste of money and precious resources.

The bottom line is that while officials are fighting, we are sitting with a few hundred thousand children a little more than 6 weeks away from a final exam which may go a long way towards shaping their futures. I believe there is a problem with regard to focus here. Let us all as educators forget about our petty infighting for a while and focus our attention on the reason we are here in the first place, the children.