This was revealed in the Teacher Preferences and Job Satisfaction in South Africa report last year. This report presents the findings of an online teacher survey, completed by roughly 1,500 respondents, and follow-up telephonic interviews with 80 teachers to investigate job satisfaction and the preferences of teachers.
Researcher Heleen Hofmeyr explains that the TDD sought to understand how upcoming teacher retirements will affect the workforce. It is anticipated that 50% of teachers in South Africa will retire over the next decade.
During their research, they found that many teachers are leaving their profession before retirement age due to several reasons. This led to the critical question of “why are teachers leaving the profession”.
Teachers are having major mental health struggles
According to the findings, the main contributing factor to teacher stress was having too much administrative work, with 70% of surveyed teachers reporting that this was the largest source of stress.
Being overworked was listed as the main reason for wanting to leave the profession, pointing to the high work load (including a high administrative burden) experienced by teachers.
Hofmeyr says teachers reported having to submit progress reports for each of their learners to district offices. In some cases, teachers can have up to sixty learners in their class.
The purpose of this was to identify learners who are struggling and provide additional support. However, teachers expressed frustration that these reports did not come.
Hofmeyr believes the government's teaching assistants programme could be a possible solution to lessen the administrative burden on teachers.
They explain that there are certain tasks teachers must complete. By allowing teaching assistants to complete the non-essential tasks could lessen the workload teachers are facing.
The Department of Basic Education (DBE) recently confirmed that it will implement a fifth phase of the Basic Education Employment Initiative (BEEI). The initiative will see 200,000 youth placed at schools in their communities to assist teachers.
There are many tasks that TAs teaching assistants can actually help with and so I think that's a promising avenue to start thinking about how we can use teaching assistants to lessen teachers' administrative burden.
They found that teachers in mid- and high-fee schools report more stress which is likely due to heightened pressure from school leadership and parents.
The research indicates that there are very small differences in the levels of job satisfaction reported by teachers across different types of schools.
Researchers anticipated that teachers working in poorly resourced schools would report lower levels of job satisfaction. They expected this as these teachers often face resource constraints and external challenges which influence learners.
They found that teachers in poorly resourced schools measured their satisfaction by the impact they have on the lives of disadvantaged learners.
Teachers in poorly resourced schools experience job satisfaction through the positive role that they play in the lives of disadvantaged children,
However, teachers mentioned learner poverty and socio-emotional and behavioural problems as significant challenges that affected both their levels of stress and their ability to deliver the curriculum effectively.
ill-discipline, especially among older learners, was often mentioned as a significant factor that detracted from teaching time.
Surveys also showed that teachers preferred working in the Western Cape, and to a lesser extent Gauteng. Worryingly, it was revealed that 40% teachers indicated that nothing could convince them to teach in a rural area.
This is worrying since it suggests that rural schools are likely to experience worse teacher shortages than those in urban areas.
