TEACHERS who spend more time in the staff-room than in the classroom are to blame for the country's education crisis, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga says
"Research after research has shown that 41 percent of time is used in class, especially by teachers in rural areas - and we don't know what the rest of the time is spent on," she said at the National Teachers Union annual general conference at Empangeni in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
Motshekga said in one case, education officials found that teachers had only taught 50 of 150 lessons.
She blamed this on the lack of managerial capabilities from the principals, who are in charge of the day-to-day running of schools.
"There are monitoring tools that are there but principals are not utilising them.
"Actually, some principals are not qualified to be principals and in most cases are found not knowing what to do themselves.
"Effective schools are run by effective principals and an effective principal will not allow teachers to sit in the staff-room," she said.
According to the qualitative analysis of Annual National Assessment results, the lack of foundation phase skills was so serious that Grade 4 pupils cannot even write their own names, Motshekga said.
"According to ANA, we found that by Grade 3, and up to Grade 6, many learners could not write properly and legibly.
"Many learners performed poorly because they could not read or follow instructions like 'fill in the missing word or tick the correct answer'.
"On the whole, learners displayed a lack of fundamental literacy skills across all the grades but more so from Grades 4 to 6.
"There were instances where written outputs from learners who were already in Grade 6 could hardly be expected from learners in Grade 1," she said.
Motshekga said the high university failure and drop-out rates were due to poor basic education.
"We have a 10 percent repeat rate, while in Southern African Development Community countries it's 5percent and globally it's a mere percent.
"This is due to a poor foundation at early grades. It catches up with learners at some stage."
Motshekga said it was crucial for primary school pupils to be taught in their home languages because it would help them understand the instructions better. Teachers were right to turn back pupils who arrived late at school.
"As much as we say teachers must be in class teaching, learners should also be in class because teachers can't teach themselves," she said.
"It's better for a teacher to compromise a few that come late than the whole class, and also it is not their burden (teachers) to ensure that learners come to school on time. It is the parents' job."
Teachers are blamed for education crisis
TEACHERS who spend more time in the staff-room than in the classroom are to blame for the country's education crisis, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga says
"Research after research has shown that 41 percent of time is used in class, especially by teachers in rural areas - and we don't know what the rest of the time is spent on," she said at the National Teachers Union annual general conference at Empangeni in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
Motshekga said in one case, education officials found that teachers had only taught 50 of 150 lessons.
She blamed this on the lack of managerial capabilities from the principals, who are in charge of the day-to-day running of schools.
"There are monitoring tools that are there but principals are not utilising them.
"Actually, some principals are not qualified to be principals and in most cases are found not knowing what to do themselves.
"Effective schools are run by effective principals and an effective principal will not allow teachers to sit in the staff-room," she said.
According to the qualitative analysis of Annual National Assessment results, the lack of foundation phase skills was so serious that Grade 4 pupils cannot even write their own names, Motshekga said.
"According to ANA, we found that by Grade 3, and up to Grade 6, many learners could not write properly and legibly.
"Many learners performed poorly because they could not read or follow instructions like 'fill in the missing word or tick the correct answer'.
"On the whole, learners displayed a lack of fundamental literacy skills across all the grades but more so from Grades 4 to 6.
"There were instances where written outputs from learners who were already in Grade 6 could hardly be expected from learners in Grade 1," she said.
Motshekga said the high university failure and drop-out rates were due to poor basic education.
"We have a 10 percent repeat rate, while in Southern African Development Community countries it's 5percent and globally it's a mere percent.
"This is due to a poor foundation at early grades. It catches up with learners at some stage."
Motshekga said it was crucial for primary school pupils to be taught in their home languages because it would help them understand the instructions better. Teachers were right to turn back pupils who arrived late at school.
"As much as we say teachers must be in class teaching, learners should also be in class because teachers can't teach themselves," she said.
"It's better for a teacher to compromise a few that come late than the whole class, and also it is not their burden (teachers) to ensure that learners come to school on time. It is the parents' job."
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