The dual economy of schooling and teacher morale in South Africa

Yael ShalemUrsula 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 changecoupled 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

Childs’ Poverty and Physical Health

Dual economy of schooling2nd site of acquisition; school fees ; social and cognitive resources

4 crucial variables that mediate teachers’ work 1. Access to learners’ who are cognitively well-

prepared 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; and4. 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 Africa2. 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 schools3. 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. 20-30% of teachers 2. access to variables 2, 43. teachers who work in middle quintile schools -a significant proportion

of learners in these schools are cognitively under-prepared for school and are not aided by extra instructional time in the home. But,

4. the teachers in these schools have acquired specialised knowledge and have access to knowledge resources in and outside of school

5. these teachers would have to expend more effort to transform these learners. Their effort is not supplemented by a second site of acquisition

6. 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