Ron Swartz, Superintendent-General of the WCED
Officials from the national and provincial education departments
Members of the Provincial Adjudication Panel
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentleman, and last but not least
Those Teachers who will receive awards tonight
It is an honour to be here tonight - amidst what I can confidently describe as "leaders in education".
Last year at this gathering I presented a picture of the provincial programme to develop school business managers, of the initiative to introduce 510 Teaching Assistants and of the salary progression opportunities that lay ahead for the teaching profession. I reflected on all our training initiatives at the Cape Teaching Institute. I touched on our intention to help teachers enrol for further study at tertiary institutions in order to help development and transformation in the province. I touched also on our Employee Wellness programme, which is set up to help employees who suffer from stress and trauma.
I am proud that I can inform you tonight that all of these initiatives are firmly on track.
We are completing the preparations with the mentors of the first intake of 150 school business managers, who will start their training in February, if our course is registered with SAQA in time. If results of that pilot show promise then we will take in 300 new students in 2009 and 500 the year after that. This upskilling initiative, like the "Teaching Assistant" one, is being driven through our FET Colleges.
A group of 13 staff members are just back from the UK where they were trained as trainers. They have successfully completed a certificate run via the Manchester Metropolitan University and the Institute of Administrative Management.
We anticipate that a trained school business manager will help take some of the load off teachers. We know that the school secretaries and bursars who take the course will benefit from the professional growth opportunity.
Our Teaching Assistant initiative is attracting great support across the country and has received favourable reports from independent assessors. 420 members of the first intake of Teaching Assistants are enrolled for Year Two of a Certificate in Education and 90 new ones are enrolled in Year One. Last week we awarded 50 bursaries to assistants to complete their second year of study and we have secured 20 bursaries, via the ETDP SETA, for Teaching Assistants who want to tackle full time study.
The WCED Teacher Bursary Programme has 97 bursars of whom 34 complete their studies this year. And 107 of the 420 Funza Lushaka bursars also qualify this year.
We are driving a steady teacher recruitment process through all our high schools.
The adjusted salary scales we have been anticipating for so long are under final discussion at a national level and we look forward to exciting progress in this regard once settlement has been reached.
We continue to invest heavily in our valuable Employee Wellness Programme which offers, amongst other things, a toll-free, 24-hour telephone counseling service. The service provides expert counseling and advice on a wide range of issues relating to mental, emotional, physical, financial and legal help for our employees. Qualified, experienced counselors provide the service.
Our Cape Teaching Institute provides residential courses not only for teachers but also, increasingly, for HODs and school principals.
When I spoke quite enthusiastically last year about some of these initiatives - of which the majority are provincial initiatives - I could not then have predicted the sustained industrial action which would impact so heavily on all of our lives this year.
A year ago I reflected in some detail, and sympathetically, on the enormous challenges which face a teacher. I described a teacher as one who is "parent", "nurse", "social worker", "instructor", "police officer" and "coach". The list is endless, of course. Our teachers need gifts of intellect, spirit and love. I pointed out that they need stamina and they need courage.
But this year our teachers indicated that they needed more than verbal recognition of their dedication and of the demands that they face. They united to signal to the world that they needed tangible recognition of their unremitting efforts to hold the social fabric together. That they needed to be acknowledged for their role as "educators" in the fullest sense of the word.
The rest, ladies and gentlemen, is history.
We know about the weeks of learning time lost. We know about the salary adjustments and rejoice at the further substantial amounts that are in the pipeline. We know about the efforts of teachers, learners and parents to help to make up for that lost time.
I'm not being flippant when I note that the events of 2007 do not serve as a PRO exercise to attract young people to the profession!
Ben Okri, the Nigerian writer, said "The worst realities of our age are manufactured realities. It is therefore our task, as creative participants in the universe, to re dream our world. The fact of possessing imagination means that everything can be re dreamed."
I know that the award-winning nominees in the room tonight, and all the hundreds and thousands of other teachers who have not been nominated but who are also doing brilliant work, are helping our children to re-dream their worlds. Our teachers, by and large, are the heroes and the caring mentors who, by the way they conduct themselves, are, themselves, the giant PRO system that keeps young people aspiring to become teachers. They are the giants who lead our young scientists through the processes of investigation and discovery.
It is our teachers who have broken schooling out of the mould which Freire criticised so sharply when he said "A careful analysis of the teacher-student relationship at any level, inside or outside the school, reveals its fundamentally narrative character. This relationship involves a narrating Subject (the teacher) and patient listening objects (the students). The contents, whether values or empirical dimensions of reality, tend, in the process of being narrated, to become lifeless and petrified. Education is suffering from narration sickness".
Our teachers have embraced the challenges of the huge volume of curriculum innovation. They have taken their role seriously. They get on with the job. Yes they do tell us, the authorities, where the problems lie alright. And we thank them for that. But, meanwhile. they are "getting on with the job". They are "teaching"! They have transformed the model. Our children are not the empty receptacles that Freire condemned. They are active learners and critical thinkers who are taking charge of their lives.
In his address on Wednesday night, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the death of Steve Biko, President Mbeki referred to Biko's prophesy where he wrote: "The great powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial and military look, but the great gift still has to come from Africa - giving the world a more human face".
The president used an extract from Albert Luthuli's speech on accepting the Nobel Peace Prize to develop this point further - quoting Luthuli's words "should she (Africa) not see her destiny as being that of making a distinctive contribution to human progress and human relationships"?
The president said "Ubuntu places a premium on the values of human solidarity, compassion and human dignity. It is a lived philosophy which enables members of the community to achieve higher results through collective efforts. It is firmly based on recognising the humanity in everyone".
The president used these and other arguments to develop a particular challenge to South Africans to ensure that, from the "gigantic death" of Biko should come a "gigantic birth".
I want to suggest that, just as "Ubuntu" embodies that to which the world should aspire, so too, it is our teachers who should be what others aspire to. Let all of our teachers be the ones who literally objectify the values and the practices which we need our children to learn and internalise.
Since many of our homes and our social structures are failing us, then let us have teachers who work together. Let us have teachers who are inspiring. Let us have teachers who are dignified. And teachers who are respectful.
Each one of us here today can name at least one teacher who had a huge impact on our lives. The reasons will differ. But we know that, and I quote, " We stand today on the shoulders of such giants".
Ladies and Gentlemen, you might be interested to learn that the words I have just used, " We stand today on the shoulders of such giants", were said by Nelson Mandela. He, a giant in his own right, was referring to Albert Luthuli - another giant.
I offer this example to further illustrate, and, in fact, to round off my point. Every giant, every remarkable person who has made an impact on the world, an impact on science, an impact on humanity - every giant stands on the shoulders of other giants.
In our hearts we know that we are called to be teachers. We know that we need to uplift and teach our children. We know that the qualities of ubuntu, the challenge to "re-dream our world", the annihilation forever of the demeaning and barbaric practices of racism and militarism - we know that the recipes for all of these are in the hands of the "giants" who have chosen to become educators.
Tonight we salute you, our nominated educators. We salute you for being such "giants". We salute all the other heroes who are standing tall and teaching our children. We challenge all other teachers in the province to be inspired to rise to even greater heights.
We acknowledge your families too. We know that the kinds of time and effort you spend on your job do not come without personal sacrifice.
Enjoy tonight. Enjoy your time in the limelight. We seldom give thanks and praise where it is due: let's try to get that right tonight!
Let's all enjoy tonight. And when our rugby team tastes the victory that we hope for later on tonight, let's remember the role their teachers played in their embryonic careers when they were at school. Let's remember their coaches, their parents and their teammates who helped shape the young lives to make them into the young heroes who carry South Africa's dreams into the World Cup!
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank all those who have worked so hard to ensure the success of the process thus far. A very special thank you to the Adjudication panel - nobody can envy them their difficult task! Our teachers are our most important resource. The National Teaching Awards are a special way of expressing this appreciation.
I thank you!
Enquiries
Gert Witbooi
Media Liaison Officer
Office of the MEC for Education
Western Cape
Tel: 021 467 2523
Fax: 021 425 5689
Visit our website: http://wced.wcape.gov.za
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