The church’s pastoral role concerning challenges faced by teachers in South-African public schools: Some practical theological perspectives

Abstract

Teaching used to be a well-respected profession, which many people used to love in the past. Many children, when asked what they wanted to be when growing up, indicated that they wanted to be teachers. This is why – even when children were play-acting – most of them liked to play the role of a teacher. It is disturbing to learn that this profession has grown to be hated by many people today. This is evidenced by the mass resignations of teachers from many public schools over the past few years in South Africa. This exodus had been researched by different scholars from different disciplines who have also made their recommendations as to how the situation can be reversed. The fact that teachers, who are disappointed and demotivated to continue with the career, are the creation of God and are teaching the creation of God, calls for the church through its pastoral theological services to play its role in trying to compose guidelines for the elimination of the problem. The purpose of this article is to search for possible ways in which the church can theologically play its role in addressing the problem of the teachers’ dissatisfaction as well as giving some guidelines on how this challenge can be eliminated.