Let us begin our foray into this year’s education budget by considering blessings and curses. Given the times we are in, there’s an English "blessing" that is especially apt: "May you live in interesting times."
It is often claimed that this is, in fact, a traditional Chinese curse, which implies that life is better during "uninteresting times" of peace and prosperity than in "interesting" ones, which are usually times of trouble. Well, however you spin it, we are in very interesting times.
In finance minister Tito Mboweni’s 2021 budget, public sector wages account for R650bn — a third of all government’s spending. Because there are more teachers (407,000) than any other kind of public servant, teachers’ salaries are the largest single line item in the entire budget, making up a third (R208bn) of all public sector wages. Their salaries ultimately amount to 4.1% of GDP.
And yet, for the second year, teacher salaries in SA will fall in real terms, once inflation is stripped out. The budget showed that salaries in basic education increased by only 1.4% (from R205bn to R208bn), and given that inflation was about 3.3% in 2020, that’s a 1.9% decline in real terms.
That sounds like a bad thing, but it’s worth putting this in historical perspective — both politically and economically.
Exactly one year ago, Cosatu threatened to "collapse the public service" and "part ways" with the government if the National Treasury failed to honour its 7% wage increase. At the time, the Treasury said that if it honoured that wage deal, it couldn’t fulfil its other constitutional obligations — so it argued for a public sector wage freeze (the one it then implemented). The courts agreed with the Treasury, but the judgement is under appeal in the Constitutional Court.
As much as the budget was about other issues — such as provisions for vaccines and higher sin taxes — the real story is the ongoing implementation of the public sector wage freeze. Public sector wages are the left, right and centre of government spending, government debt, and government’s ruling alliance with Cosatu.
In a research paper our team released last year, we found that between 2008 and 2019, teacher wages increased by an average of 9.2% a year, while inflation averaged 6.3% a year. As a result, the only way that provinces were able to cope with these higher salaries was by implementing hiring freezes, leaving schools without principals and heads of departments.
If this seems a bit abstract, let’s talk about monthly salaries. What do teachers actually get paid in SA? The common perception is that teachers’ salaries are really low. But what does the data say on this issue?
A paper published last year using government payroll data shows that the average SA teacher was paid about R42,700 a month (including benefits), while the total package for teachers 50 years and older was R47,874 a month or R575,000 a year (see graph).
This is not to say that teachers are overpaid, but rather to highlight that teacher salaries have increased dramatically over the past 10 years, and thus the halt in salary increases along with other wages in the public sector is apt.
In our view, given the circumstances in SA — not only the need to fund vaccines and their rollout, but also to address chronic unemployment and hunger — it is fair and reasonable at this point to implement a wage freeze.
The unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 24 is now 63%, according to the latest Stats SA survey, which came out this week.
While we certainly do need more money to go into education, it is not in the form of further salary increases for teachers. Class sizes are set to expand, and pressure on nonpersonnel spending (such as books) is also rising.
Rather, we need to hire and train the many unemployed young people with matric as teacher assistants (estimated cost: R3,600 a month), and we need to make sure all children have books.
These teacher assistants can be allocated to primary school teachers throughout the country with a special focus on early-grade reading and mathematics. It would be a neat solution to help teachers manage large class sizes, while employing 400,000 young people.
It’s time to pivot from the old strategy of salary increases for the well paid, and prioritise those who are actually marginalised in society.
- Spaull and Lilenstein are researchers at the Research on Socioeconomic Policy group at Stellenbosch University
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