Voluntary teacher turnover in the Tshwane South district

Abstract

Teachers play a critical role in the development of any society. The purpose of this study was to explore some of the factors that led teachers from Tshwane South District schools to voluntarily resign before retirement age during the period 2013-2015. Despite the need for education and the important role that teachers play in South Africa, teacher turnover for the period 2013-2015 escalated dramatically, with 27 168 teachers resigning from the profession. This high turnover of teachers threatens South Africa’s achievement of the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals, with Goal 4 being “Quality Education”, and presents both a concern and a challenge for the Department of Basic Education (DBE). For this study, a qualitative research design was followed, which made use of face-to-face, semi-structured interviews to collect information. A purposive sampling selection strategy was used to select participants. Information was collected from Tshwane South District participants who had resigned from their posts between 2013 and 2015. The study ascribed to the interpretivist paradigm so as to understand teacher turnover from a humanistic perspective. The collected information was analysed using thematic identification, where themes were created from the interpretation of actual phrases emanating from the interviews. Responses from selected participants revealed that the primary cause of teacher turnover for this period was related to financial challenges. The financial indebtedness of participants led to teachers resigning in order to access their pensions and use that money to pay off debts that they had accumulated over the years. Furthermore, it was found that working conditions contributed to the early resignation of many of the participants. Working conditions in this study’s context were characterised by workload and learner discipline, both of which proved to be challenging for the participating teachers. It was also noted that some teachers resigned only to return to the profession at a later stage. Such teachers are colloquially referred to as “resign and resume” teachers. The potential benefits related to this study could apply to both the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) as well as the Tshwane South District, as the study may supply these entities with valuable information regarding teacher turnover. These stakeholders could also potentially implement this study’s recommended methods to mitigate the challenges surrounding teacher turnover in the Tshwane South District in the future.