Teaching as a Career Choice: Comparing the Persistent Challenges in South Africa and Seychelles

• Main Author: Deon Vos, Hennie Steyn, Louw de Beer, Charl Wolhuter & Indra Persaud
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES) 2020-09-01
• Series: BCES Conference Books
• Subjects: teachers; teaching profession in seychelles; teaching profession in south africa
• Online Access: https://bces-conference-books.org/onewebmedia/2020.056-062.Deon.Vos_et.al.pdf
• ISSN: 1314-4693; 2534-8426

Both Seychelles and South Africa are experiencing serious challenges with regard to providing for the need to employ the required number and quality of teachers – needs that are differentiated according to specific areas of competencies. In the paper, it is argued that each of the education systems of these two countries should have a well-planned recruitment strategy and particular attention should be paid to preparing a recruitment message that will attract possible candidates. Each of the education systems has been found to be lacking in several aspects of the recruitment message, such as the social status of the teaching profession and the comparison of teachers’ remuneration. It has been found that South Africa is better placed than Seychelles in respect of only two factors, namely teacher training opportunities and better comparable remuneration packages of teachers in South Africa. It is clear that all of the stakeholders should be involved in the recruitment of teachers. Other developing education systems can learn from the experiences of the two countries.