2. Background and Introduction
The teacher work force in South Africa has been undergoing
turbulent change in the last few years as a result of a variety of factors.
These include the merger of the old departments of education, the differing
approaches adopted by Provincial governments to retrenchment and recruitment
related to needs and financial resources, changes in the framework for
teacher’s qualifications, and the reorganisation of teacher education
provision. The onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is now adding a new dimension to
the turbulence experienced so far and has implications both for the supply and
demand for teachers.
In order to put some parameters around past and future
turbulence, this paper develops a systematic analysis of the main data sources
available on teachers. We analysed the 1995, 1997, and 1999 October Household
Surveys (OHS) and set up comparisons between teacher and non-teacher members of
the working labour force across time. We took a cross-sectional cut of the
entire PERSAL2 database as it applied to employees of education
departments in both November 1998 and November 1999 (exactly one year apart) in
order to judge the dynamics of entry and exit into this database (and, hence,
into the public teaching workforce) over a 1-year period. We undertook systemic
demographic forward-modelling of the sector, based on the data from these
sources as well as from administrative records. Finally, we analysed various
other aspects of the data. We expected to be able to document great turbulence
and critical trends. We expected to be able to make simple and portentous
macro-level statements. What we found provides are range of insights which are
worrying, but far too nuanced to result in statements that are portentous
and simple.
2 PERSAL is the central
personnel database system for tracking certain characteristics of the employees
of the state. It can be accessed centrally for analytical purposes, and locally
for data
entry.
