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Business model could rescue SA’s fatally flawed education system

By Jackie Carroll

South Africa is desperate need of a new education model – ideally one based on broad business principles.

Right now, little that we have in place is working. That’s why a radical new approach is critical to the future prosperity of our nation.

My plea is that the authorities adopt a business model, where teachers with scarce skills earn more and where teachers are subject to regular performance reviews. If they don’t perform as they should, no bonus and no increase. And they are not guaranteed a job. This is how things work in the private sector. Why should it not apply to teachers in the public sector?

The system as it is does not encourage excellence – far from it; it doesn’t foster excellence because it doesn’t reward excellence. You can get away with doing the absolute minimum – or you can be an outstanding teacher and get paid the same salary.

In similar vein, a teacher with scarce skills, like mathematics and science, gets remunerated on the same scale as teachers whose skills are relatively commonplace. That’s how ridiculous the current system is.

Other countries adopt a different approach in the sense that their pay scales are such that they get to pick the cream of the crop. Here we take everyone and anyone who wants to be a civil servant because we don’t have a lot of skilled people seeking poorly remunerated employment.

If we want to stop the strikes we have to take our critical services more seriously. They must be prioritised on any budget. And we need to change the approach. If we are looking at a housecraft teacher, we need to know how many there are in the country, versus how many mathematics teachers. Pay the latter more and the supply/demand imbalance will right itself.

That’s how the market mechanism works. And it’s a mechanism that has proved itself – time and again, over a great many years —to be the most efficient in allocating scarce resources.
At present, a teacher is guaranteed a job for life. That’s nonsense. If I don’t perform in my job I should be fired – as in the private sector. I must earn that 13th cheque; it must not be automatic. If times are tough, I should not expect a bonus. A great many private sector companies did not grant bonuses or salary increases in the past two years because there just wasn’t the money.

The other side of the coin is that one must reward scarce skills that have performed.

And you have to take into account qualifications when arriving at a remuneration package – as is done in the private sector. Qualifications should be well rewarded, as people with degrees work at a much more critical level. The more you specialise, the more you should be rewarded.

Government’s insistence that it hasn’t enough money to pay premiums to scarce teaching skills is nonsense. There’s enough money if the priorities are right and the current huge wastage is eliminated. There is a huge number of ghost teachers on the payroll, while a great many suspended teachers are still being paid.

A radical new market-based approach must start right at the beginning. When a teacher applies for a job, a market-related salary must be established; one based on supply and demand. Performance criteria will be agreed and bonuses paid in line with that.

And the same criteria would apply to all the seven layers of education above that teacher.

Market-related remuneration has several vital ramifications.

Because teachers are so poorly paid, many resort to earning extra money in their spare time. This detracts from their teaching time. In effect, they are insufficiently focused on their career because it does not generate enough money on which to live.

One solution is to educate our children into the belief that when they leave school they should think about what jobs they can make rather than what job they can get – not the current socialist model that encourages a country’s citizens to look to the state to provide a house, a job, a decent wage.

They must be taught to think about what they need to do to acquire that house and to get that job.

The socialist ticket that got the government into power was laden with promises of free houses, highly paid jobs and all the services that go with free housing. The mind-set of our children must surely be steered away from the socialist entitlement that will ultimately bankrupt their brain and, with it, the economy.

A business-based model would help weed out other inefficiencies, among them the ridiculous situation whereby specialised teachers supervise and teach sport. If you want a tennis teacher, go to a university or college and get students to do it.

You pay your top teachers to work eight hours a day. In fact, only five of those hours are devoted to teaching; the rest to sport. Why would you want to pay someone at that rate to teach cricket? It doesn’t make business sense.

Rather, use the extra three hours to help pupils who are struggling academically. And/or try to squeeze in an extra class. Then hire someone at a lower rate to coach sport. There are countless university students who would love to coach sport and earn money for doing so – at a rate less than that applicable to a schoolteacher. And they would be far more qualified to do so than the teacher.

That’s optimally using the skills you are able to source. And you would achieve better results in both areas.

It took courage to admit that outcomes-based education was unsuccessful. Now, with the deadwood eliminated, the ground for a fresh business model approach is fertile.

Sure, a lot of teachers are there as a calling. But at the end of the day they are still parents; they are still breadwinners. If we can reward them in a way that will make a difference in their lives, we can surely expect better delivery.

Jackie Carroll is CEO of Media Works, a Johannesburg-based organisation that specialises in adult basic education and training.