Bloemfontein, University Of The Free State, 7 October 2002
Master of ceremonies
Distinguished guests
Teachers - those present here today, as representatives of the 400 000 teachers in the country, in public and independent schools, Colleges, Technikons and Universities.
I want to thank the South African Council for Educators and the Education Labour Relations Council for convening this event, and for inviting me to address you in celebration of World Teachers Day. I am very pleased to be able to do so.
I have spent the past three days at a Conference which my Ministry hosted, under the theme "Know the Past, Anticipate the Future". This first-ever national conference on History, Memory and Human Progress acknowledged the critical importance of ideas and the carriers of ideas in creating the shape of our society. The messages of history - both documented and the oral history which we all carry - help us to understand who we are, and where we are going. The conference therefore acknowledged teachers - at schools and universities - as key mediators in creating our society. Through the work that they do, in their mediation of knowledge, they also mediate social relations. And to do so, they are engaged in a continuous process of dialogue, with ideas and with people.
Some of this dialogue is with the curriculum. In devising learning programmes, and using them to teach, teachers are constructing and interpreting knowledge - making new sense of ideas. Your formal involvement in the development of the revised curriculum statements recognises this role, but your dialogue with the curriculum should not end with these formal processes.
The rest of the dialogue is with a wide range of people who depend on your work. You relate to officials from the Department of Education, especially locally based officials who advise and support schools. Part of that dialogue should also include an evaluation of performance: how are our schools and teachers working? Others will hold the District to account. Your primary dialogue should therefore be an internal one - a conversation among professionals.
A second level of dialogue is between peers. Teachers as professionals must create opportunities for an interchange of ideas. You tell us you are the grassroots practitioners - you know best about what happens in the classroom, and what should happen. I accept that, and therefore the responsibility for your development lies with you. You must not wait for someone else to "empower you"; to "capacitate you", or to "workshop you".
A third level is that of dialogue with your learners, and their parents. Interaction with your learners is a given, but its nature and content is not. Think about that dialogue, and how it is affecting your pupils. Loose words can be very destructive, prejudice and bias are damaging. A word or two of support, and the encouragement of the spirit of enquiry, can open up new worlds and a new vision for our children.
Parents are no less sensitive. Many parents have little or no schooling. Many have had some schooling, but probably recall it as a bad experience - oppressive, authoritarian and alienating. Teachers are not their favourite people - they fear you and your knowledge. They see you as one of "them" - educated, employed and middle class. Work with them, talk to them, and listen to them. There is nothing as dis-empowering as having others see you as powerless, as being treated with disdain and a lack of respect. Your Code of Professional Ethics makes explicit mention of your relations with parents. I trust you will consider the nature of this dialogue very carefully.
Ensuring the quality of all this dialogue is not easy. We know that. A recent newspaper article describing enormous responsibilities of teachers had the headline: "What a poor, exhausted creature is a teacher". The most offensive part of the article concluded that teachers had to perform their many tasks "armed only with a piece of chalk".
If chalk is indeed all you possess, then you do not belong in the profession. I know that you have extensive knowledge - of your subject and of teaching methods. I know that you have many skills, which go well beyond the technical aspects of the job -counselling, organisational and technological skills. I also know that you have a passion for the job - a passion and commitment which insists that whatever the task, it will get done. These are the real tools of your profession. Chalk is just a symbol.
I am offended by the many people, union leaders among them, who should know better, who continually refer to the low morale of teachers and their lack of self-esteem. One of the first lessons teachers are taught (or certainly should be), is that labelling children is a dangerous thing, which often becomes self-fulfilling. In the same way, those who continually say teachers are demoralised are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
At a recent policy conference, the President of the African National Congress reminded us of the need to deal with realities and not perceptions. There are many critics who have an interest in creating a false perception of this country, especially of education. Scare stories about falling standards abound - we are told we are "dumbing down" the school system. There are those who tell us that discipline has collapsed in schools, that teachers are abusive and so on. We are told that we are centralising control of education, when it was this government that created school governing bodies as democratic instruments. People do this because they wish to make political mileage- to persuade others that things are not what they seem. By contrast, independent research, such as that conducted by the SA Advertising Standards Authority, confirms the remarkable progress this country has made in improving the lives of its citizens.
In the face of these critics, I am continually excited and pleasantly surprised by the dynamism, the commitment and the excitement of our teachers. I regularly visit schools in rich and poor, urban and rural areas. In almost every case I have teachers telling me of their passion for their job, and their determination to build a better life for their children. I find teachers and principals who spend long hours after school developing school gardens, providing extra classes for children, meeting parents, and offering guidance and support of all kinds. To any of these teachers, talk of demoralisation is an insult, and is contradicted by the facts. The low attrition rate among teachers is further evidence that despite the rhetoric the vast majority of teachers are strongly committed to their calling, and choose to stay in the profession.
This is not to suggest that we have no reason for concern. There are teachers who have joined the profession as a last resort, and for whom it is just another job. These are the teachers who were quite happy to walk out on their classes earlier this week. It is interesting to note that the majority of these teachers are to be found in Limpopo and the Eastern Cape - two provinces which can least afford this kind of attitude. Even among office based educators, I was shocked to read that some 50% of education officials in the Eastern Cape did not report for duty on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. One has to question their motives, and their priorities. It is a sad irony that more office based
officials took part in the protest than teachers. To cite the President again: we must shoulder the obligations of membership of an organisation. The same applies to the profession. The benefits of professional autonomy have a price; status is earned, not given.
We are concerned about the lack of new recruits for the profession - especially black people. I regret to report to you that the teaching profession has become increasingly white since 1994. This correlates with the trend identified by Professor Jansen, who reports that it is mainly the white (and largely Afrikaans) student teachers who indicate that they have registered on the basis of a "calling". We must find ways to attract young black students into teaching.
Hence we will be mounting a Road Show in 2003, which will showcase teaching, in an attempt to lift the status of the profession. Status is not measured by salaries, but in terms of how you are seen by the public you serve. While salaries and working conditions are matters for negotiation, and therefore not entirely in your control, the issue of public perception is firmly in your hands. You are the sole determinants of public perceptions of teachers. If they are good, you must take the credit. If not, we must hold the profession accountable, and ask what must be done to improve it.
We have already discussed this matter with unions and SACE. The road-show will commence early next year. The goal is to tempt new entrants back into the profession. Not just because it is a job which offers a high level of job security, but because they see it as an opportunity to contribute to the development of society. For this purpose, we do not need more "fellow travellers" - acquiescent and apathetic people who just "do their jobs". We are looking for the brightest and the best from your schools, who will lead the profession into the future.
Research has shown that one of the most powerful determinants of career choice is the attitudes of teachers. If teachers are negative about their own work, pupils will look elsewhere for a career. When we are proud of the work we do, pupils see it very differently. Let us re-establish the tradition where parents who are teachers encourage their children to enter the profession.
We are trying to increase the recruitment of teachers. We have allocated R50 million this year for teacher education, to be provided as bursaries and loans through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). We have also urged provinces to provide bursaries to student teachers who can then repay them through an equivalent period of service. Some provinces are indeed already doing so.
We have also given attention to the recruitment and placement of newly qualified teachers. The recently approved Education Laws Amendment Act attempts to deal firstly with the serious problems encountered by rural schools that fail to attract well qualified teachers to posts. It also deals with the problems encountered by newly qualified teachers in securing an appointment, where often hostile school governing bodies tend to select staff on the basis of racial preferences.
We have therefore provided an alternative route for the appointment of staff to school. We have not eliminated the existing process. Schools and student teachers who find that it works for them, they should continue to use it. But schools that are frustrated by a lack of qualified applicants, or where students teachers are confused and alienated by the laborious and complex application procedures, we are providing a new route that is "simpler, better, faster". One application to the Department will be matched with existing vacancies, and an offer of appointment will be made.
We hope that these initiatives will create new opportunities for recruitment. Another attraction must be a wish to be part of the exciting transformation that it taking place in the sector.
You will all know about the processes of curriculum change that are going on. The revised National Curriculum Statement for General Education has been completed, and we are working towards its implementation from 2004. We will also be publishing the draft FET Curriculum later this month. I look forward to your engagement with this document. We know that education reforms tend to tax the energy and enthusiasm of teachers. We must therefore be cautious about introducing change. But we must also accept the enormous political imperatives to do things differently. We cannot wait indefinitely. Justice delayed is justice denied.
The history of teaching in this country remains to be told. From the earliest practices of socialisation and initiation in tribal communities to the teachers in our many esteemed missionary schools that produced so many of today's leaders. We must document the growth of the profession. The blanket strike of 1952 must not be forgotten when teachers reported to school in their blankets, claiming they were too poor to buy "teachers clothes" (by which they meant Western clothes).
The later organisation of teachers into racially based professional associations must be recorded. The role that these organisations played in resisting or legitimising apartheid and the recent unionisation of teachers must also be analysed. This is a challenge for the profession, which is in danger of forgetting its own history.
The final challenge which I pose to you is that of teacher unity. It is a good opportunity to speak about this subject as we meet here today as a unified profession, and without organisational affiliations. It disappoints me that I should be meeting one of the teacher unions next week to discuss the curriculum and assessment. Are your differences on such professional matters so great that this could not be a joint meeting?
Related to national teacher unity, I must also challenge you on the need for unity and solidarity within the region and across the continent. What are you doing for the war ravaged teachers of Mocambique and Angola? How are you helping the teachers of Zimbabwe? The world helped us through our complex transition, and now it is our task to help others facing similar enormous challenges. As social leaders, I must urge you to take a strong lead in this regard.
Finally, let me return to our theme of dialogue. The spirit of Tirisano calls on us to work together to build a South African education and training system for the 21st Century. Dialogue is a necessary condition. We should never be ashamed of our willingness to discuss, to conceptualise and to plan in preparation for action. If we fail to plan, we plan to fail. We cannot afford any failures.
So I appeal to you to keep open all the lines of dialogue. With myself, with provincial departments, and with your pupils and parents. But most of all, keep open the dialogue between yourself and your peers. Reflect on what you are teaching, how you are teaching, and why. What you do today will determine who we are in the future. I salute all the teachers of our land. It is you teachers who will develop the new South African, and you teachers that will build our new nation.
I therefore wish you well and join with communities around the world in saluting all sixty million teachers. I conclude with an appeal to you to get into your classrooms, and do what you know has to be done. Our people expect and deserve nothing less.
I thank you.