Latest / Drive with John Perlman / Teachers retiring early due to burnout, disruptive students, and excessive workloads.

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Teachers retiring early due to burnout, disruptive students, and excessive workloads. · Drive with John Perlman

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  Speaker 1: You're with John Perlman on 702. 23 minutes now past
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: three o'clock. Good to have you with us on the show.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: One of the interesting things that came up in the
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  Speaker 1: medium-term budget policy speech delivered by Finance Minister Enoch Gorongwana
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  Speaker 1: earlier this week is this number, 27,450 public servants applied
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  Speaker 1: to retire early without incurring any pension penalties. Here's the
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  Speaker 1: part I want to focus on. By far, The largest
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  Speaker 1: number of them were teachers, 8,763, followed by around 5,150
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: coming out of the health sector. So let's find out
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  Speaker 1: what this is all about, because it seems to me
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  Speaker 1: that a lot of teachers are leaving the profession early.
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  Speaker 1: The big question, of course, is why? Let's get a
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  Speaker 1: sense of that and welcome to the show, Lovica Matthews,
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  Speaker 1: who's Chief Negotiator for the Teachers' Trade Union, NAPTOSA, also
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  Speaker 1: plays a similar role at the Trade Union Federation, FEDUSA.
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  Speaker 2: Ms.
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  Speaker 1: Matthews, welcome and thanks very much for giving us your time.
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  Speaker 1: Why are all these teachers taking early retirement? Good afternoon.
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  Speaker 2: Good afternoon. Thank you for having me and good afternoon
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  Speaker 2: to your listeners. Well, let's face the reality. Teachers are
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  Speaker 2: at the coalface of service delivery. Every day they're expected
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  Speaker 2: to educate, manage large classes, maintain discipline, complete admin tasks,
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  Speaker 2: assess learners, and meet curriculum targets, often without adequate resources.
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  Speaker 2: So in understaffed schools, the burden becomes even heavier because
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  Speaker 2: teachers must absorb additional responsibilities. We have schools at the
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  Speaker 2: point now where they are unable to afford their SGB teachers,
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  Speaker 2: which now automatically means that the Department of Basic Education
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  Speaker 2: teachers must then carry their load as well. So this
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  Speaker 2: all adds up. We have disrespect from parents and learners,
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  Speaker 2: as well as teachers feeling drained and often struggling with
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  Speaker 2: mental health issues as well. So when this carrot was
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  Speaker 2: dangled in front of them, to take early retirement without
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  Speaker 2: penalties as well as an additional cash incentive, obviously they
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  Speaker 2: would take it.
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  Speaker 1: That's the context of the decisions and choices a large
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  Speaker 1: number of teachers have made, Ms. Matthews. What about the consequences?
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  Speaker 1: Can I assume these are teachers that we still need?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, 8763 broadly grouped under the label of education.
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean every single one of them would be
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  Speaker 1: a teacher, but it does suggest I would think it's
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  Speaker 1: fair to conclude that most of them are. Does this
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  Speaker 1: leave our classrooms denuded of much needed teaching skill?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, I will have to agree with that because as
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  Speaker 2: much as recruitment is essential, right, we must try to
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  Speaker 2: ensure that the skills that we have with the professional,
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  Speaker 2: the experienced teachers, we have teachers who were experts. The
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  Speaker 2: people leaving now, they're basically the last cohort of teachers
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  Speaker 2: who know how to teach reading, who are able to
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  Speaker 2: address individual learner needs. So unfortunately, we are going to
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  Speaker 2: be left with a gap. because these teachers have left
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  Speaker 2: to burn out and unsustainable working conditions. And if we
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  Speaker 2: look at the younger generation, the younger generation, oftentimes they
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  Speaker 2: come into a classroom, they find that this is not
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  Speaker 2: worth it, I can do something else, and they leave.
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  Speaker 2: They don't have that sense of commitment that the older
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  Speaker 2: teachers or the older generation used to have. So yes,
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  Speaker 2: I can definitely foresee us sitting with gaps in the system.
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  Speaker 2: And it's not only teachers, but we also have office-based
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  Speaker 2: staff that will be leaving or that have left, as
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  Speaker 2: well as managers. So automatically, there are going to be gaps.
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  Speaker 2: And unfortunately, we just came out of a PPN, the
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  Speaker 2: ELRC PPN workshop, and most of the provinces are indicating
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  Speaker 2: that they don't even have the funds to advertise these posts.
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  Speaker 2: And that is a serious concern. That is, I mean,
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  Speaker 2: if you think about it, the children won't be going anyway.
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  Speaker 2: The responsibilities won't be going anyway. It just means that
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  Speaker 2: it will be piled up onto the people who are
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  Speaker 2: left behind. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So it does raise the question, what could have been
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  Speaker 1: done to, you know, obviously some people are going to
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  Speaker 1: say yes and their reasons might be, But if you're
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  Speaker 1: saying the bulk of the reasons for accepting this offer
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  Speaker 1: are related to working conditions, where should the fix start?
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  Speaker 1: What are the most important things and doable things, if
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  Speaker 1: they indeed are, that need to be listed as first priorities?
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  Speaker 2: Firstly, we need to have a realistic teacher post provisioning system, right?
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  Speaker 2: And a recruitment plan. to address the understaffing because now
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  Speaker 2: we know the gaps are there. But at the same time,
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  Speaker 2: we also need faster action on school infrastructure backlogs, including
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  Speaker 2: insufficient classrooms. We can't have people working out of, and
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  Speaker 2: learners being expected to learn in mobile classrooms. When it's cold,
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  Speaker 2: they are freezing. When it's hot, it's extremely hot. We're
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  Speaker 2: experiencing heat waves now. You can imagine the struggles that
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  Speaker 2: our teachers have trying to convince or trying to teach
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  Speaker 2: learners who are unable to learn in those conditions. And
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  Speaker 2: then obviously also just effective measures to protect teachers against violence,
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  Speaker 2: intimidation and abuse because this is real. School safety is
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  Speaker 2: something that it's a new norm where parents don't ask questions,
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  Speaker 2: they just come and they further humiliate and disrespect teachers.
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  Speaker 2: We need effective measures to protect our teachers. We need
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  Speaker 2: clear and consistent enforced learner discipline policies supported by parents
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  Speaker 2: and the school communities. Because it's not just the teacher problem.
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  Speaker 2: These are learners that we are preparing for the world
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  Speaker 2: of work. They are future citizens. So all of us,
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  Speaker 2: the entire community needs to invest in these learners. And
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  Speaker 2: then also a review of administrative requirements and workloads so
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  Speaker 2: that teachers can focus on teaching. We have people coming
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  Speaker 2: into classrooms They want expecting tasks. They want a number
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  Speaker 2: of tasks that were done. They want to see reading,
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  Speaker 2: how many reading activities were done. How were you able
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  Speaker 2: to prove that?
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  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Lovika Matthews. She's chief negotiator at the
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  Speaker 1: Teachers Trade Union, NAPTOSA, and also plays that role for
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  Speaker 1: the Trade Union Federation, FEDUSA. I'd be very interested to know,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps you're a teacher who decided to take early retirement.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps you're a teacher who would actually like to do
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  Speaker 1: that or is considering it because some of the stresses, pressures,
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  Speaker 1: deficiencies in the system that Lovica was detailing there are
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  Speaker 1: things very uppermost on your mind. So do give us
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  Speaker 1: a call on 011-883-0702 and 072-702-1702. It's half past three.