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Despite stating publicly that she will take measures to deal with teacher absenteeism, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has not set any targets to ensure that teachers are in classrooms teaching our children.

This was revealed in a briefing to the Portfolio Committee on the Department of Basic Education’s Annual Performance Plan for 2012/13.

In the Committee meeting, Director-General Bobby Soobrayan said that no target had been set because the Department has no baseline from which to work and that there is no means to measure performance.

This is totally unacceptable. How is it possible that, after all this time, the Department is no closer to setting targets to tackle the absenteeism rate? What is causing the hold-up?

It is a long established fact that teacher absenteeism is a major contributor to the poor quality of education in disadvantaged schools. The National Planning Commission, in its diagnostic overview, revealed:

“Almost 20% of teachers are absent on Mondays and Fridays. Absentee rates increase to one-third at month end.”
“Teachers in African schools teach an average of 3.5 hours a day compared with about 6.5 hours a day in former white schools. This amounts to a difference of three years of schooling.”

The Department itself estimates that in the Eastern Cape, for example, the absenteeism rate is as high as 10%. This means that on any given school day 1 in 10 teachers are not at work.

One has to wonder why no effort has been made by the Minister to tackle teacher absenteeism, particularly in disadvantaged schools. Could it be that, like President Zuma, Minister Motshekga is afraid of upsetting SADTU ahead of the ANC’s elective conference in Mangaung?

Tackling teacher absenteeism would necessarily pit the Minister against one of the ANC’s key alliance partners. This is because the bulk of teachers who are routinely absent from the classroom are SADTU members. Calling them to account would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

We hope that the Minister manages to summon the political will to make good on her promises to the children of schools with high teacher absenteeism rates. The learners should be her priority, not a trade union that is willing to sacrifice our children’s future for its own narrow interests.