More teachers have to be appointed

Education crisis in province

I REFER to the letter titled “Education department in province needs shaking-up” (February 28).

I fully agree with the writer in his/her analysis of the educational debacle we are facing in our province and would like to endorse the suggestion of the optimal number of pupils per teacher in each grade at 25 in the foundation phase and 35 in the intersen phase.

The national Department of Education seems to think differently – many schools don’t even have the same ratio of pupils to teachers every year.

This creates the uncertainty of redeployment and the reality of a class without a teacher.

This becomes the responsibility of the school governing body (SGB).

At entry level children are compelled by law to attend school.

It is thus expected that every six-year-old child in South Africa is enrolled in a Grade 1 class. The number of these children exceeds the number of children outputting the system in Grade 12, as the South African Schools Act is clear that compulsory school-going ends on the last day of the year in which the pupil turns 15 or the ninth grade.

Many pupils thus exit the system at this point and high school classes from Grade 10 are generally not as large as those in the foundation phase.

There is also increased migration of pupils across the city in the quest for “better” education. Many parents wait until the last moment to register their children at the school of their choice and end up at the education department offices in desperation when they find out that it is full.

This puts pressure on the officials and principals are forced to take children – and the teacher ends up with another child in an already over-full class of children.

Then there is the issue of the principal, who is forced to carry a teaching load and manage every facet of education – from the toilets to the tuck shop, with a few irate parents, stressed-out teachers and undisciplined, indifferent children thrown in for good measure. He/she is included in working out the ratio. For instance, 350 pupils in a school at a ratio of 35:1 would equal 10 teachers – the principal is included in that number, so somewhere his/her 35 allocated children need to be accommodated.

It is unrealistic to expect a principal to have a class and to run the school, with its complexities, optimally.

When a class is without a teacher for whatever reason, the principal needs to make a plan by either finding a temporary teacher, if they qualify, or appointing a teacher to be paid by the SGB. This happens often during a school year! The desperation of the temporary teachers, who are sometimes paid after they have already rendered service, is evident in every school. Who has to face that person on payday and apologise and explain that for another month there will be no money?

Is this not the responsibility and obligation of the department of education?

The SGB-appointed teachers in no fee schools are paid as little as R2 500 to perform the same job as their colleagues, with the same amount of preparation and marking. Is that a professional fee? Who should be paying this teacher? Right now, it is the poor parents who by way of fundraising are accommodating the responsibility of the government, who should be providing a teacher per class.

There are many facets to the solution – for a start, get rid of the outdated Morkel model that has been working out inadequate ratios of pupils to teachers, and create realistic class sizes and then enforce the class sizes.

Also ensure that teachers are appointed quickly and pay them on time.

This may stop the exodus of our best teachers to other countries, who benefit from their training first-hand.

As citizens of this country we have an obligation to look after our schools and protect the profession of teaching.

We are entrusted not only to look after the wellbeing of our children, but also of our teachers.

In the words of former US president John F Kennedy, “Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education”.