Teacher absenteeism remains a big problem

Times Live reports about the issue of teacher absenteeism today. Research has shown that only 41% of teacher's time is actually used in the classroom. The TISDA report research identified teacher absenteeism as one central obstacle in providing quality education in South Africa as well. Teachers who spend more time in the staffroom than in the classroom are to blame for the country's education crisis, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said. "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 to know what to do themselves. Effective schools are run by effective principals and an effective principal will not allow teachers to sit in the staffroom," Motshekga told the Newspaper.

The issue of teacher absenteeism falls under the broader context of quiet or silent corruption. Quiet corruption is broadly defined as various types of malpractice of providers that do not involve monetary exchanges and result in a failure to deliver public services of adequate quality that have been paid for by the government. Often, cases of quiet corruption go unnoticed. To increase quality of education, we have to tackle the issue. One approach often discussed is to pay educators according to their performance, hence this would provide an incentive for qualified teachers to actually go the classroom and teach. So far however, the teaching unions have provided such a rule from being passed.

Let's keep the pressure up and tell people about quiet corruption!