The dual economy of schooling and teacher
morale in South Africa
Yael Shalem
Ursula Hoadley
What do studies show us?
• Studies on teacher supply and demand: normal attrition
rate amongst older teachers but a high attrition rate
among younger teachers who ‘first join the system, test it
and leave for something preferable after a few years’
• Studies on job satisfaction: high job stress, role
expansion and intensification are high predictors for
teachers’ leaving the profession
• Studies on job stress: time pressures, educational
changes, administrative problems, professional distress
and pupil misbehavior, and related illnesses
• Systemic evaluation, educators workload and news
papers
The problem to be investigated
• Current research reports on many factors that
contribute to teachers’ low morale and
experience of job stress
• what is missing is the big picture -“The
prevailing educational settlement of teachers’
work”
• Without the big picture, we don’t know if
measures taken by government to reform the
system (mainly to raise learner achievement)
would be appropriate, given the above state of
teachers (low) morale and (low) job satisfaction.
Teachers’ low morale needs to be considered
in the context of these structural conditions
School management of
accountability demands
Curriculum reform
enduring economic
inequalities
Enduring economic inequalities
Social and economic inequalities
Workers would have taken, in 2003, 111 years to
earn what an executive director earned in a year,
and, in 2004, 150 years. In the mining industry in
2004, it would have taken a worker on the
minimum wage 257 years to earn what a mining
boss earned in a year. (Legassick 2007, 483)
• 68%, or 12.3 million children (mainly African
rural children) family’s income less than R1200
per month
Child poverty
• 68%, or 12.3 million children (mainly African rural
children)
• family’s income is less than R1200 per month
• 2.6 million children (almost exclusively Black) live in
backyard dwellings or shacks in informal settlements
and, 5.2 million children (more than a quarter of all
children in South Africa and predominantly Black)
live in overcrowded households (2006);
• The families of 45% of children use inadequate
sanitation facilities and rely on unsafe or distant
sources of drinking water.
Poverty and achievement
• strong correlation between the former race category of
schools, social inequality and achievement
• the largest proportion of formerly white schools are in
quintile 5 (best off) and the largest number of learners
in formerly Black schools are in quintile 1 (worst off)
• overwhelming majority of children in the low-performing
80% of schools are poor and African
• physical conditions of the child’s health (stunting,
poverty and school completion)
• child-rearing practices (reading practices, skills
embedded in linguistic interactions between parents and
children)
Unequal access of teachers to schools with
learners of high socio-economic background
Home 2nd (3rd ) site of
acquisition
Child’s physical health
Childs’ poverty
Quasi- market for teachers
inequalities at the level of the
school
Inequalities at the level of the school
• School fees : Parents in the richest schools spend 570 times more on
added private support to the school than in poorer schools
• Public spending: per black learner has increased by 75% ; per white
learner has more than halved. But if we include school fees in the
calculation, 34% more is spent on every public school learner in the
richest quintile compared to the other four quintiles’.
• Teacher salary: the new salary structure is based on the 1995
baseline qualification and years of experience of each educator. It
continues to reproduce past inequities of pay differentials between
teachers. De facto, the salary of educators with higher qualifications
and more years of experience is still being rewarded
• Distribution of teachers into schools: wealthier, suburban schools
fill posts with well qualified teachers.
• Jansen: ‘A dual system that nurtures
pupils’ vain hopes’ ;
• Fleisch: A bi-modal distribution of
achievement
• Taylor and Yo: ‘class is displacing race as
the critical factor in the determination of
the composition of South Africa’s schools’
Quasi-market of teachers’ labour –very few
teachers have access to schools in quintile 5
and 4
Teacher salary policy
School fees policy and
public spending
2nd site of acquisition
Child’s physical health
Childs’ Poverty
Constant change
coupled with bureaucratic
demands of accountability
Organisational changes
• 4 curriculum changes within a short space of time
• Teacher subject knowledge
• Teacher confidence
• CAPS:
•
•
•
•
content specification
curriculum coherence
time specification
skill specification in relation to content
• Curriculum implementation and access to specialised knowledge
• a larger reservoir of specialised knowledge
• better mentoring possibilities for novice teachers
• good teaching practices of individual teachers who are motivated to
transform their practice
• effective school management that mediates between state’s
regulation and the reality of the school
Unequal access of teachers to schools with
high level of organisational resources
School regulation
Underspecified curriculum
Teachers knowledge
Dual economy of schooling
2nd site of acquisition; school fees ; social
and cognitive resources
Childs’ Poverty and Physical
Health
4 crucial variables that mediate
teachers’ work
1. Access to learners’ who are cognitively wellprepared for schooling, are physically healthy
and whose homes function as a second site of
acquisition;
2. meaningful learning opportunities in the past
and in the present and a reservoir of cognitive
resources at the level of the school;
3. a well-specified and guiding curriculum; and
4. functional school management that mediates
the bureaucratic demands on teacher time.
Category 1: lack access to all 4 variables
1. 60–70% of teachers in South Africa
2. work in schools for the poor and produce poor student
achievement
3. These teachers would have to expend much more effort to
develop their learners and the task is insurmountable given
they lack access to the above variables
4. If the management at the school level is unable to mediate
the intense bureaucratic demands of accountability systems,
these teachers will start experiencing role intensification
without any necessary improvement in student learning.
5. Low morale and lack of job satisfaction
Category 2: have access to 4 variables
1. very small % of teachers
2. work in rich schools
3. their effort to develop learners and to transform them into a
productive citizenry is supplemented by the instructional
time of the learners’ home (second site of acquisition and in
some cases by the aid of a private tutor, a third site of
acquisition).
4. These teachers enjoy reasonable levels of autonomy when
their learning and teaching time is protected by school
leadership that is confident to filter the bureaucratic
demands of accountability...
5. Their access to cognitive resources and their confidence
may compensate for poor curriculum
6. High level of teacher morale
Category 3 (1)
Access to variables 2, 4
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
20-30% of teachers
access to variables 2, 4
teachers who work in middle quintile schools -a significant
proportion of learners in these schools are cognitively underprepared for school and are not aided by extra instructional time
in the home. But,
the teachers in these schools have acquired specialised
knowledge and have access to knowledge resources in and
outside of school
these teachers would have to expend more effort to transform
these learners. Their effort is not supplemented by a second site
of acquisition
School leadership is important these school protecting teacher
time to exercise discretion. We can expect that these teachers’
morale will be higher than teachers who work with the same
kinds of learners but are subjected to management that requires
blind compliance.
Category 3 (2)
Access to variable 1
• 10%
• Teachers who work in ‘stagnating’- formerly privileged
schools..
• teachers in these schools have access to learners who are
healthy and cognitively prepared for school
• they have acquired specialised knowledge and work in
reasonable physical environments. Yet they do not have access
to new learning opportunities and thus their access to
knowledge resources is limited
• These teachers display low levels of collaboration and
motivation and rely heavily on the second or even a third site
of acquisition.
The evidence shown in this paper
• goes against a commonly held view that school failure is a
result of teachers’ inefficiency
• argues that it is time to flag the intractable pattern of
inequalities that are produced because of the close
association between children’s cognitive development and
family poverty , adversarial market conditions,
bureaucratisation of teachers’ work and a radically new
curriculum.
What should be done
• teacher shame and blame must be stopped immediately.
What is needed is true recognition of the differential effort
required of different teachers in adding value to child’s
background
• recruitment campaign “teachers matter”
• differential pay (packages) relative to the effort teachers must
expend to develop their learners
• accountability is not one fits all, different school conditions
must be respected
• use test-data to develop teachers