Teacher absenteeism: Is Angie Motshekga afraid of SADTU?
Despite stating publicly that she will take measures to deal with teacher absenteeism, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has not set any targets to ensure that teachers are in classrooms teaching our children.
This was revealed in a briefing to the Portfolio Committee on the Department of Basic Education's Annual Performance Plan for 2012/13.
In the Committee meeting, Director-General Bobby Soobrayan said that no target had been set because the Department has no baseline from which to work and that there is no means to measure performance.
This is totally unacceptable. How is it possible that, after all this time, the Department is no closer to setting targets to tackle the absenteeism rate? What is causing the hold-up?
It is a long established fact that teacher absenteeism is a major contributor to the poor quality of education in disadvantaged schools. The National Planning Commission, in its diagnostic overview, revealed: