Chairperson, the issue of the teachers who are teaching in the rural areas has not been reported as a challenge yet, but what I know is that we are engaging with the provinces because we want to respond to this issue of the incentives as it is frustrating us. Teachers who come from Limpopo get the incentives, and drive for two kilometres to school; it takes them two hours to drive to school because they do not want to stay in the rural areas. Therefore, we now think that the incentives should be in the form of accommodation, and not money, because money is not handled appropriately.
The other thing is that they choose to go to the rural areas and once they are promoted to level two they return to where they were teaching. They know that a position cannot be reversed, so they return armed with a higher position. These incentives pose many challenges, and that is why we are talking about what can be done to encourage teachers to teach and stay in the rural areas and not to stay in the urban areas. They leave their homes in the morning and when one o'clock strikes they become very agitated as they want to go back home because they are staying far from their workplace - they are working in the rural areas. We are trying to work this thing out because it does not work well the way it is right now. [Applause.]]
Vote No 16 - Health: