Abstract:
Paper presented at the South African Association of Public Administration and Management (SAAPAM) 9th Annual Conference, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, 30-31 October 2008. The Conference theme was "Consolidating state capacity".
This paper acknowledges that, despite increasing expenditure in education in
South Africa, there are indications that outputs and outcomes in education
are not responding fast enough to increase spending in education within
the country. Although parents and learners are also major stakeholders within
education, the paper argues that any attempt to improve outputs and outcomes
needs the support and commitment of teachers. This, therefore, calls for a need to
promote sound ethics and professionalism within the teaching profession.
This paper argues that although professionalism and ethical conduct by
teachers have major impacts within the teaching and learning environment
there has not yet been any common approach by government and teachers in
South Africa. This creates a need for change of attitude from all concerned if
the desired results are to be achieved. While some progress has been made to
close the gap between the government and teachers on issues of professionalism
there are still more to be done. Finally certain recommendations are proposed
that involve various stakeholders so that an environment conducive for teachers’
professionalism and ethical conduct is created.
