Incapacity for poor work performance in the education sector
- Authors: Faker, Mogamat Salie
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Capacity and disability , Employees -- Dismissal of , Employees -- Rating of -- Law and legislation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , LLM
- Identifier: vital:10252 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1020209
- Description: According to the latest Education Statistics Report published by the Department of Basic Education in March 2013, there were 12 680 829 learners and students in the basic education system in 2011, who attended 30 992 education institutions and were served by 441 128 educators. The vision of the Department of Basic Education is of a South Africa in which all our people have access to lifelong learning and education and training, which will, in turn, contribute towards improving the quality of life. Ultimately this will influence the building of a peaceful, prosperous and democratic South Africa. The emphasis is on excellence. Therefore maintaining high standards of performance and professionalism is a national imperative. However, this has not always been the case in terms of performance. For more than a decade we have witnessed dismal results in literacy and numeracy. This was accompanied by a low throughput rate. Despite the poor matric, literacy and numeracy results in South Africa as well as the low throughput rate, no teacher has been formally charged for poor performance in the last two decades. South Africa’s education budget is regarded as one of the highest in the developing world. Since 1993 the education budget has also grown substantially. South Africa’s education expenditure on education has grown from R30 billion in 1994/05 to R101 billion in 2007/08. Spending on education grew even further from R207 billion in 2012/13 to a projected R236 billion in 2014/15. Additional allocations of R18.8 billion over the medium term are accommodated, including equalisation of learner subsidies for no-fee schools and expanded access to grade R.6 Over the rest of the medium-term-expenditure framework (MTEF),7 spending on education, sport and culture will amount to R233 billion in 2013/14. The investment in education has not yet yielded the desired results and the outcome of education is not in keeping with the substantial input. This crisis in education is one of the major challenges facing Government, Administrators, educators, parents and children of today. According to Spaull,9 the South African government spends the equivalent of $1225 (R12440.26)10 per child on primary education, yet accomplishes less than the government of Kenya which spends only the equivalent of $258 (R2620.80)11 per child. Various reasons such as poverty, management, leadership, imbalances of the past, two unequal education systems, poor management, training and development, non-accountability, role of government and unions, have been identified for the poor state of our education system. However, what is noticeably absent and hardly mentioned in any of the position papers, is that not a single teacher has been held accountable and dismissed for incapacity for the poor performance in the education sector. Unfortunately, there is no record in any of the provincial education departments’ annual reports that a teacher has been dismissed or at least placed on a formal programme of incapacity for poor performance. Therefore, we have to ask the question: “Are we getting value for money?".
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- Date Issued: 2014
Termination of the employment contract due to ill-health in the public education sector
- Authors: Hlekani, Mphakamisi Witness
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Employees -- Dismissal of , Collective labor agreements -- Education
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , LLM
- Identifier: vital:10256 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1020969
- Description: The subject of the present treatise concerns termination of employment contracts that are effected as a result of an employee’s incapacity on the grounds of ill-health or injury. Every employee has the right not to be dismissed unfairly. The Labour Relations Act, 1995 recognises three grounds on which termination of employment might be legitimate. These include the conduct of the employee, the capacity of the employee and the operational requirements of the employer’s business. However, fundamental to any contract of employment is the obligation that rests on an employee not to be absent from work without justification. The Incapacity Code and Procedure in respect of Ill-health or Injury applicable to Educators is contained in Schedule 1 to the Employment of Educators Act, 1998. In addition there are collective agreements which are the products of collective bargaining that are also applicable to all categories of employees employed in the public education sector. Notably, PSCBC Resolution 7 of 2000 forms part of the subject of our discussion. The Department of Education determined the use of independent Health-risk Managers to provide advice on the management of incapacity leave and ill-health retirement, thereby ensuring objective and impartial evaluation which are largely acceptable to employees and their labour representatives. This is the Policy and Procedure on Incapacity Leave and Ill-Health Retirement in the Public Service. The appointed Health-risk Managers make recommendations to the Head of Department who thereafter implement the recommendations and deal with issues of a case to absolute finality. More importantly, the Policy and Procedure for incapacity leave and ill-health retirement in the Public Service is issued in terms of legislation, that is, section 3(3) of the Public Service Act, 1994 and therefore is not a collective agreement. Under the circumstances, it is not always easy to determine a real dispute and an issue in dispute. Because of this uncertainty arbitrators often found that bargaining councils have no jurisdiction to entertain these disputes, while on the other hand some arbitrators opined that bargaining councils do have jurisdiction In this treatise the general principles of the employment contract, the legislative framework applicable in the public education sector in determining an application for temporary incapacity leave and ill-health retirement and procedural and substantive issues in the termination of employment contract due to ill-health are considered and explained. The legal questions around the issue of discretion exercised by the Head of Department in granting or declining applications for ill-health are also examined. The primary aim of the treatise is to provide a clear exposition of the rather complicated law relating to incapacity due to ill-health and injury in public education.
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- Date Issued: 2014