Durban - A proposal by the Department of Basic Education to “professionalise the teaching profession” by issuing licences to new teachers has teachers’ unions on edge.
Speaking in Parliament recently, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced that the issue of teacher licences was being looked at; this was later repeated on the department’s website.
This will, apparently, only affect new teachers. It is still in the discussion phase and it is not immediately clear when it will be implemented.
The statement said: “The Department of Basic Education is working with the South African Council for Educators (Sace) to professionalise teaching through standard setting and the strengthening of the induction of new teachers.
“The proposal is to provide newly qualified teachers with provisional registration and to require them to meet teacher professional standards upon completion of an introductory three-year programme in order to obtain full registration.”
Teachers’ unions have questioned the motives for introducing a licensing system.
National African Teachers Union (Natu) deputy president Allen Thompson said the issue of licensing was an old one that had been forgotten about. The union was concerned that it was being brought back while its intentions were not clear.
“The issue of teacher licensing was once brought in by the former minister Naledi Pandor. But we have no idea what their intention is in reintroducing it, and therefore we will wait for them to make a formal tabling.”
He doubted whether any success could be derived from licences as the department had “no effective teacher development programmes”.
“America is using the licence process, but they have serious teacher development programmes, something we do not have,” said Thompson.
The licensing would be cumbersome.
“Remember, training to be a teacher used to take three years and then it was increased to four. With the licensing it will now be increased to seven years and we do not know what the reason is for that.”
Anthony Pierce of the National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) said the concern was what the minister was intending to achieve with the licensing.
“The teachers are registered with Sace, and that registration allows them to teach anywhere in the country. Whatever they want this licensing issue to do, is already being done.”
He said licensing would not even make firing teachers for misconduct easier “because there was already legislation in place that deals with teacher misconduct in detail”.
The South African Democratic Teachers Union did not respond to a request for comment.
The Mercury