Thousands of teachers to take a day off

Thousands of maths teachers are to be taken out of the classroom for one day each week for "intensive training".

The move by the government forms part of a radical bid to boost the performance of Grade 8 and 9 maths pupils - and comes after Grade 9s achieved a dismal 11% national average during last year's annual national assessments.

Teacher unions have already weighed in with concerns about the implications of reorganising time-tables, especially in cases where maths teachers are also responsible for other subjects.

The "urgent" intervention could result in thousands of teachers from more than 6440 schools being absent from school on Mondays for most of this year.

Nkosana Dolopi, deputy general secretary of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu), said they supported any initiative to assist teachers, provided it was not disruptive.

But he cautioned that the plan could result in pupils at some schools being left unattended.

"It should also be remembered that these Grade 8 and 9 teachers don't teach only one subject," Dolopi said.

A circular dated January 9, signed by the department's acting director-general, Paddy Padayachee, informs education MECs, exams monitoring body Umalusi, and the unions about the intention to have teachers attend training at centralised venues.

In the three-page letter, Padayachee said the "intensive teacher development programme" was being implemented to address the poor results.

He said the Council of Education Ministers (CEM), a body made up of Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga and her nine provincial counterparts, had in November last year given a strong directive that "radical steps" be urgently taken to turn the situation around.

Departmental officials unveiled the initiative, which will be funded from grants earmarked for the Dinaledi schools and technical schools, to teacher unions this week.

According to the circular, school management teams must ensure that time-tabling is done in such a way that no teacher will lose teaching time.

"Maths teachers must be allocated periods from Tuesday to Friday and the number of periods and/or the amount of time allocated in the four days cover the approved allocation for maths lessons for the week."

Anthea Cereseto, deputy president of the National Professional Teachers' Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa), said the implications of taking teachers out for one day a week were enormous.

"The repercussions will include learners across grades being without teachers, loss of teaching time in other subjects and poor curriculum coverage."

Cereseto, who is the headmistress of Parktown Girls in Johannesburg , said whilst Naptosa supported interventions to improve maths achievement levels in Grades 8 and 9, the union did not believe this was the correct approach.

"Naptosa cautions against quick-fix interventions. In theory the intervention framework sounds plausible, but the practical implications will result in major disruptions in teaching and learning."