The Teacher Turnover Crisis: Evidence from South Africa

Abstract

In spite of numerous strategic interventions by the department of basic education to retain educators in the profession, there continues to be a high number of educators leaving the profession. This attrition of skilled personnel has had an adverse effect on the capacity of the state to realize its millennium development goals. These goals include achieving universal primary education by 2014. A key focus of the South African government strategic objective is to ensure the country has skilled expertise in various fields i.e. commerce, education, industry, science and technology etc. This goal can only be achieved in an environment of sustained investment in human capital development by the government. In the arena of education a significant contribution of the country’s focus has been directed to teacher development. Despite these gargantuan efforts on the part of government, there continues to be a brain drain with high educator turnover. A tacit indication of this massive investment in education is the fact that of the R165 billion budgeted for education, R2.7 billion has been earmarked for teacher development. This clearly points out to the strategic importance of leadership and human capital development as critical areas for broad human resource development goals of the state.

Keywords: Teacher Turnover, South Africa

JEL Classification: A2