Hon Chairperson, in response to the question of Mr T B Beyleveldt from the DA, Western Cape, on whether any plans are in place to improve the morale of teachers, our response is as follows.
The existence of quality teachers represents one of the most important inputs into the achievement of quality education for all. Continuous improvement of teacher morale and motivation is therefore critical to ensuring the quality of teaching and learning. The department's approach to this challenge is multipronged.
Firstly, it involves the overall improvement of both the conditions of service and the working conditions of educators. The implementation of the occupation-specific dispensation, OSD, has insured that the salaries of teachers have improved remarkably by an average of 38% since 2008. Negotiations are currently ongoing on finalising other critical aspects of the OSD, such as career pathing, to ensure not only that there is a broadening of career path options, but also that teachers who choose to remain in class and not take up management positions are rewarded. In other words, you can have a career path within the classroom without going to a department to serve there, and you could receive the equivalent in terms of remuneration as in a department that is outside the school.
As part of the improvement of working conditions, the department has launched the Teacher Laptop Initiative, which we believe assists the teacher in the 21st century environment.
In 2008, the department introduced the teacher incentive policy aimed at attracting and retaining teachers in the system. One of the incentive types relates to the incentivising of posts in rural and remote areas. You have an incentive and a reward for teaching in the rural areas and you have an incentive and a reward for teaching scarce skill subjects such as mathematics, science or the languages. So far, only one province - interestingly, Limpopo - has fully implemented the rural incentives, with the North West partly implementing it. Five provinces have set aside funds to implement incentives in the 2011-12 financial year. Gauteng has not committed any funds for incentives, given its urban area and layout. Mpumalanga will implement the incentive policy for scarce subjects rather than that for rural areas and remoteness. In other words, it's a discretionary thing that provinces have to exercise.
A total of approximately R250 million has been committed to providing for incentives for teachers in rural areas. The department therefore believes that all these initiatives for all teachers, and the incentives specifically for rural areas, will contribute positively to the improvement of the morale of teachers in the rural areas.
However, the reality of migration is something that affects not only South Africa, but all countries across the globe, and it's a matter that we have to address and we have to do whatever is necessary to retain skills.
With regard to teacher development per se, we can share with you that for the first time in the history of the country we have an integrated teacher development framework, which is owned by all stakeholders, including the teacher unions. It arose from a teachers' summit, which was initiated by, amongst others, the hon Minister of Higher Education and Training. And this really speaks to the issue of teacher development on the basis of precept training, as well as continuous professional development. An amount exceeding R500 million has been set aside in this financial year to ensure that we increase the professional capacity and competence of our teachers. I thank you.