OUR TEACHERS, OUR
FUTURE
Presented by
Daya Chetty
South African Principal’s Association
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INTRODUCTION
• “From the moment students enter
a school, the most important
factor in their success is not the
colour of their skin or the income
of their parents, it’s the person
standing at the front of the
classroom...
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• America’s future depends on its teachers.
That is why we are taking steps to prepare
teachers for their difficult responsibilities
and encouraging them to stay in the
profession. That is why we are creating
new pathways to teaching and new
incentives to bring teachers to schools
where they are needed most.”
President Barack Obama
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“Rosa Smith, former superintendant of the
Columbus, Ohio, schools, had an epiphany one
morning when she read some statistics about
U.S. prison population. Some 75% of the prison
population, she found, is Latino or African
American, and 80% are functionally illiterate.
She felt a new sense of purpose: Her work was
no longer about teaching math or science, but
about saving lives!”
Alan M. Blankenstien/Michael Fullan –
Failure is NOT an Option
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TEACHER RETENTION AND TEACHER
RETIREMENT
Over the next twenty years, 280 000 teachers will
retire, and 280 000 new teachers will be needed to take
their place. This poses both an enormous challenge and
an extraordinary opportunity for our education system:
if we succeed in recruiting, preparing, and retaining
great teaching talent, we can transform public
education in this country and finally begin to deliver an
excellent education for every child.
What plans are in place to create succession?
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WESTERN CAPE
• More than 41% of permanent teachers
and principals in the Western Cape will
reach retirement age in the next 15 years.
• Almost half of permanent teachers, heads
of department, principals and their
deputies, or around 11 600 people, were
50 or older, The Cape Times 15 May 2013
The figures were revealed by provincial education department
human resources director Ivan Carolus in the provincial
legislature on 14 May 2013
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CURRENT STATISTICS
source: Persal
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TEACHER TRAINING
PROGRAMS
• While there are many beacons of
excellence, unfortunately some of our
existing teacher training programs are not
up to the job. They operate partially
blindfolded, without access to data that
tells them how effective their graduates
are in primary and secondary school
classrooms after they leave the teacher
colleges/universities.
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TEACHER RECRUITMENT
Too many universities are not attracting top
students, and they are not setting a high bar
for entry into the profession.
Critical shortage areas like science,
technology, engineering, math, and special
education are going unfilled.
What are we going to do to ensure that
quality students are attracted to the
profession?
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ONE SIZE FITS ALL APPROACH
Too few teacher training and preparation
programs offer the type of rigorous, clinical
experience that prepares future teachers for
the realities of today’s diverse classrooms.
Principals and SGB’s who hire large numbers
of new teachers, are frustrated at having to
retrain new teachers for the challenges of
their school type.
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HIGH PREPARATION
STANDARDS
“We need to take the lead in recruiting
and training teacher candidates. Let’s
start by giving them the best
preparation anyone could imagine on
the front end, before they ever set foot
in a classroom. Students need and
deserve our best efforts and our best
educators.” Michael Fullan
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TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS
Research has shown that teachers are the most
important school-based factor in determining
student achievement. Comprehensive teacher
effectiveness reform must include bringing
accountability to teacher preparation.
Jonathan Jansen
We have to raise the bar for teacher
preparation so that excellent programs and
practices are the norm across our nation.
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SOUTH AFRICA
As a whole, South Africa is not following the
lead of high-performing countries and
recruiting the nation’s best and brightest
into teaching.
Our differences with other nations are not
due to teacher preparation alone. We must
do more to support and reward excellent
teaching at various stages in the education
system. However, we can do more in the
area of preparation.
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NOVICE TEACHER FEEDBACK
More than three in five university students
report that their institutions did not prepare
them for “classroom realities.”
University lecturers don’t provide clinical
support to improve classroom based
teaching and challenges observed.
Feedback is limited to the content or
methodology rather than the practice.
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STUDENT TEACHER
DIVERSITY
In a challenge that transcends any
individual preparation teaching practice
program, the teaching workforce does not
reflect the diversity of the nation’s students,
with a student body that is increasingly
black. Our teachers need to reflect the
demographics of the country in all schools.
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ATTRITION RATE OF
TEACHERS
Teachers are leaving the education system due to
inadequate support from school management
teams.
Lack of induction and support programs makes
teachers feel inadequate and thus leave for better
managed schools.
Principals and SMT’s need training, support and
mentorship to retain good teachers through well
managed schools with systems.
Report on Millenium development goals
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A positive school climate, as Michael
Fullan alluded to, includes building
teacher commitment to the work in
the school, creating a cohesive sense
of direction and creating an
organization in which people have
high levels of job satisfaction.
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ROLE OF TEACHER IN A
SCHOOL
Henry Von Dyke has said about teachers
and teaching “Ah! There you have the worst
paid and the best rewarded of vocations.
Do not enter it unless you love it. For the
vast majority of men and women it has no
promise of wealth and fame, but they to
whom it is dear for its own sake are among
the nobility of mankind.
ROLE OF TEACHER IN A SCHOOL
• The teacher is the yardstick that measures
the achievements and aspirations of the
nation. The worth and potentialities of a
country get evaluated in and through the
work of the teacher, “The people of a
country are the enlarged replica of their
teacher.” They are the real nation
builders.
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ROLE OF TEACHER IN A SCHOOL
• It needs no description that the teacher is the
pivot of any educational system of the younger
students. On him rests the failure or the success
of the system. If the teachers are well educated
and if they are intellectually alive and take keen
interest in their job, then only, success is
ensured. But, if on the other hand, they lack
training in education and if they cannot give
their heart to their profession, the system is
destined to fail. Hence, the teacher is another
vital component of the school.
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ROLE OF TEACHER IN A SCHOOL
• The teacher is a dynamic force of the school. A
school without teacher is just like a body without
the soul, a skeleton without flesh and blood, a
shadow without substance. “There is no greater
need for the cause of education today than the
need for strong manly men and motherly
women as teachers for the young”. As social
engineers, the teachers can socialize and
humanize the young by their man-like qualities
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ROLE OF TEACHER IN A SCHOOL
• “A teacher can never truly teach unless he
is still learning himself. A lamp can never
light another lamp unless it continues to
burn its own flame. The teacher who has
come to the end of his subject, who has no
living traffic with his knowledge, but
merely repeats his lessons to his students
can only load their minds. He can not
quicken them” -- Tagore
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ROLE OF TEACHER IN A SCHOOL
• “Every teacher and educationist of experience
knows that even the best curriculum and the
most perfect syllabus remains dead unless
quickened in to life by the right method of
teaching and the right kind of teachers.” -Secondary Education Commission
• “The Teacher is the real maker of history.” -- H.G.
Wells
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Essential Qualities of a Teacher
• Teacher as a Role Model
• Teacher’s Character
• Teacher’s Personality
• Teacher’s Mental Health
• Teacher’s Physical Health
• Teacher’s Social Adjustment
• Teacher’s Professional Efficiency
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Essential Qualities of a Teacher
• Teacher’s Academic Achievements
• Teacher’s Professional Training
• “No one should ever be permitted to
become a teacher of the young unless by
temperament, attitudes and training, he
is fitted to do so.”
• Teacher’s Accountability
• Professional Ethics of Teachers
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Each child is living the
only life he has—the
only one he will ever
have.
The least we can do is
not diminish it.
--Bill Page
One hundred years from
now it will not matter
What kind of car I drove,
What kind of house I lived in,
How much I had in the bank account,
Or what my clothes looked like.
But the world will be a better
place because I was important
in the life of a child.
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ABRAHAM HLOPHE PRIMARY
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PE BREAKFAST E.CAPE
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Thlabane West Primary School
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Tshwane South D4 district
AWARDS FUNCTION
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Mpumalanga SAPA breakfast
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Bojanala District Strategic Planning Meeting
in Magaliesberg – North West Province
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International day for people
with disabilities
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Musa e. ZULU – Book Launch
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EXCO MEMBERS - NTHABI
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DBE – YEAR FUNCTION
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Kaalfontein Secondary
School
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Ikaelelo Senior Secondary
School – Free State
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SCHOOL READINESS VISITS
NORTH WEST PROVINCE
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Christiana School for the blind
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Parkside Primary SchoolDurban
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Rustenburg Area Office
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District Subject committees
planning meetings
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Curriculum management
training with SAOU
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Taxila Secondary School –
Polokwane
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SYMPHONIA SGB DEBATE
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1+4 MATHS MEETING WITH
THE DBE
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CONCLUSION : Thank You!
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BECOME A SAPA MEMBER!
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