The South African Council of Educators (SACE), in partnership with the DBE and social partners, hosted a gala dinner on 30 October, 2015, to honour South Africa’s teachers as part of the Teacher Appreciation and Support Programme (TSAP). This marked the end of Teacher’s Appreciation Month which, is related to World Teachers Day and celebrated on 05 October annually.
The gala dinner brought together representatives from the Department of Basic Education (DBE), teacher unions and other support organisations to honour the dedicated teachers of the nation.
TSAP is a programme of the Education Sector, led by SACE and the DBE, which is dedicated to lifting the morale of teachers through programmes to address their emotional, physical and financial wellness.
TSAP brings together the DBE and social partners such as SACE, the National Education Collaboration Trust, the Education Labour Relations Council, the EDTP SETA and teacher unions, under the theme “Teachers, the Heartbeat of the Nation”. The aim is to celebrate the scores of dedicated teachers in the classroom throughout the year, and not just on the occasion of World Teachers Day.
It is also hoped that this Programme will help attract qualified teachers and to positively affect productivity and efficiency amongst the other objectives. In celebrating the teachers for their important role in shaping the minds and futures of South Africa’s past, present and future generations, TASP will focus on celebrating teachers as regularly as possible.
Teacher development is one of the major focus areas in the current education administration. This will include various policy reviews including conditions of service, teacher recruitment, deployment, utilisation and development.
Speaking at the gala event, Deputy Director-General: Teachers, Education Human Resources and Institutional Development, Mr Temba Kojana, told the audience that in 2014 stakeholders agreed on a programme to honour teachers throughout the year, which gave birth to TASP.
“We want to move from talk to action, empowering our teachers to build a sustainable society,” said Mr Kojana. “As the Department, we have moved swiftly to address a number of key issues raised by stakeholders.”
“Through our collaboration with teacher unions, we have trained more than 85000 educators on SACE-accredited programmes in recent years. We also commit today to partnering with our school governing body associations on accredited programmes based on TASP.”
The Deputy Director-General added that all stakeholders have a role to play to ensure the objectives of TASP are met at all levels of the education system.
“Improved teacher morale will lead to improved efficiency and all stakeholders have a role to play in this. We must also ensure that our teachers are respected in the classroom and we will be having a discipline summit to work on teacher safety in schools,” said Mr Kojana.
SACE CEO Mr Raj Brijraj indicated that the gala dinner was the culmination of a series of teacher appreciation activities, which aimed to honour teachers throughout the year.
“Partners here today have pledged solidarity to TASP. If we empower our teachers and show them love and appreciation we can win over their hearts and minds,” said Mr Brijraj. “It is teachers who will build the sort of sustainable society we envision for the country.”
