By Hassan Isilow
JOHANNESBURG
Tens of thousands of South African teachers have resigned due to low salaries and rumors that the government is planning pension reform.
"Last year, we lost about 14,000 teachers," Basil Manuel, the president of the National Professional Teachers Organization of South Africa (NAPTOSA), the country's second largest union in the education sector, told The Anadolu Agency.
"In November alone, we lost about 4,000 teachers," he noted. "Some of the teachers we are losing are very experienced people."
Manuel said they were particularly worried about science teachers, who were difficult to replace.
"We view this as a crisis," he asserted, noting the number of resigning teachers exceeded the number of new recruits.
"About 12,000 teachers graduated in 2014," Manuel said. "It takes four years to train a teacher, yet they resign in a day."
According to him, the total number of teachers on the state payroll is 340,000.
Manuel noted that many teachers resigned last year because of rumors that they might lose part of their pension money, as the government was reportedly planning to reform the pension system.
Other reasons, he added, included inadequate salaries and poor working conditions.
He said a first-year teacher in South Africa earns about 14,000 rand (approximately $1,300) without deductions, while an experienced teacher gets about 17,000 rand (approximately $1,600), minus deductions.
Experienced professionals in other fields get nearly twice the amount that a teacher takes home.
In 2013, President Jacob Zuma appointed a Presidential Remuneration Review Commission to find ways of improving salaries and working conditions for public servants, including teachers.
"I am waiting for the outcomes of the commission before deciding to quit or not," one Johannesburg teacher told AA, asking not to be named.
"But our salary needs improvement," he said, noting that he was living in debt because he had to pay a mortgage, car installments and buy food for his family.
No exodus
Nomusa Cembi, a spokesperson for the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU), said most teachers quit because of rumors that, if they didn't take their pensions by March, they would be cut.
"Teachers are leaving to get their pension and buy homes," she told AA by phone.
Cembi, however, noted that fewer people were joining the teaching profession because of the low pay.
She called for bringing the condition of services into line with other professions.
But the Department of Basic Education played down the problem.
"In a real sense, there's no exodus because most of the teachers are still teaching as temporary teachers," department spokesman Elijah Mhlanga told AA via text message.
He stressed that the Presidential Remuneration Review Commission was "doing work with a view to improving work conditions."
Mhlanga asserted that the department recruited teachers annually through various platforms, including the Funza Lushaka bursary program, which promotes teaching at public schools.
It offers bursaries for students who achieve full teaching qualifications in areas of national priority.
Mhlanga said the department also uses a database of qualified teachers who are currently not teaching.
"The list of those returning to the profession is growing," he told AA. "At last count, we had 5,000 teachers who want to come back and teach."
