DEDICATION
6.6 CONCLUSION
7.1.3 Teachers, on the question on unappreciation
Kadesh: Nowadays, in schools, learners are very rude, they are disrespectful. Whether you teach them or you don't teach them, they don't care. You put in the effort, they don't care, so at the end of the day you feel unappreciated and demotivated. If learners don't appreciate, then it comes as an insult to the teachers because we put in the effort, we do everything we can because we want the best for the learners (KT 15).
Mercy: Sometimes we do write letters to parents asking them to allow learners to come to school during the school holidays - and then it seems that the parents also do not appreciate the work that we do if they don't encourage their kids to come to school. And you teach these learners and at the end of the year they fail and the department will say YOU are not doing your work...So, nobody appreciates us really (MT 18).
Kadesh: And then the department will say you need to account: how am I going to account if a learner is disrespectful...can I account for that?
(KT 16)
Grace: They say 'you have failed to make the children pass' (GT 20).
Kadesh: Sometimes you feel demotivated, you feel like giving up.
Because when I am trying my utmost best but it's not working out’, when I want the best for the learner and they don't give me 100% effort in achieving what I want them to achieve (KT 19).
Grace: Sometimes I even bunk classes so that I can say 'huh...at least I stole their time’ (GT 26).
Kadesh: And speaking of unappreciation - let's bring in the issue of pay.
You know we have degrees...I think that we are underpaid (KT 21).
Noah: What pay? (NT24) Grace: What pay? (GT27)
Mercy: Just to buy a loaf of bread (MT21).
Kadesh: I think as an educator, you should live in a proper house, you should have a car - the salaries that we are earning, we can't afford to live comfortably (KT 22).
Grace: You know, there were exchange teachers from Germany to one of the schools in lnanda19 and they asked 'why are the teachers here not staying in the prime suburbs? Why is the government not investing in the education?' (GT 28)
Kadesh: Even when they [the government] do invest, the problem is with implementation. We are always failing at implementation. How many curriculums have we had? (KT 23)
Noah: I would go further and say implementation, monitoring and evaluation (NT 25).
Kadesh: On that issue, you know what the department said with the matric exam? They said that they will send out exam monitors to all the schools, but not even one monitor has pitched up at my school...not even one (emphasis)!!! (KT 24)
19 Inanda is a township in eastern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa that is situated 24 km inland from Durban. It is populated primarily by Zulu-speaking Black Africans – retrieved from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inanda, KwaZulu-Natal
Noah: No, they are sending double monitors to our schools - they don't trust us!! (NT 26)
Mercy: They don't trust us...even the chief invigilator [the principal]
...they want to be sure (MT 22).
From this extract, teachers noted that the unappreciation occurred at three levels, namely;
the learners (who are usually ill-mannered), parents (who are not supportive), Department of Education (with unrealistic demands and meagre salaries). Kadesh’s articulation on the demotivation he felt (KT19) as a result of being unappreciated by the learners who were often disrespectful and uncaring (KT15) was reciprocated by Grace who implied that she bunked classes as her way of retaliation. However, Grace’s comment was in contradiction with her own comment in the one-on-one interview where she indicated that she bunks classes in order to do the work that she usually cannot do in class [marking learners’
books (GT39 INT)]. Now she was suggesting that it is a way of revenging the unappreciation (GT26 FG). Mercy, in turn talked about the discouragement that teachers received from parents who often did not show support of teachers’ initiatives (MT18).
Together with Kadesh and Grace, they talked about how they felt teachers were unappreciated by the Department of Education officials who were seen to hold teachers accountable even for things that were regarded by teachers as unfair (KT16, GT20). The rhetoric that was espoused in this part of the discussion was that of defeat or failure, that is, when teachers did not get the respect or the anticipated results from learners; when teachers were blamed by the DoE for learners’ failure in the exams; when teachers did not get support from parents. They felt demotivated or defeated and highly unappreciated.
When Kadesh identified salaries as a one form of unappreciation, all the participants made comments on how little they were being paid to the extent of equating the salary to “just enough to buy a loaf of bread” (MT21). Grace emphasised the seriousness of the issue of salaries, where it was, not only South African teachers who realised that they were unappreciated, but also visiting international teachers who commented about it (GT28).
The discussion then changed its focus from unappreciation to implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Kadesh’s assertion about the ineffectiveness of the Department of Education in monitoring the examination processes (particularly the matric20 exams) was
20 Matriculation – in the South African context refers to the final year of high school; which when passed well serves as a basic entrance to tertiary education
based on the rhetoric of blame. However, on the contrary, Noah who initially positioned monitoring as something which was lacking in the education system, indicated together with Mercy that their schools were being monitored throughout the matric examination session. The rhetoric of trust vs distrust was explicitly purported by both Noah and Mercy (NT26, MT22). By implication, the Department of Education officials favoured certain schools over others. It seems that the schools that were monitored during the examination period were those that were deemed as having potential of misconduct.