Teachers in South Africa are leaving the profession at an alarming rate, raising urgent questions about their working conditions. How can teaching be regarded as the “mother of all professions” when the system fails to adequately prepare and support those entering it?

Across South African classrooms, teachers are constrained in their ability to focus on what they were trained to do: teach despite the existence of policy frameworks intended to support them. Although such frameworks, including the Integrated Strategic Planning Framework for Teacher Education and Development and the New Teacher Induction Guidelines, exist, their implementation remains uneven. For many beginning teachers, support exists in principle but is rarely experienced in practice.

Alongside this, expectations continue to expand. Teachers are expected to fulfil multiple roles, including counsellors, social workers, administrators, mediators, and disciplinarians. While these responsibilities are acknowledged in the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) policy, the conditions required to support them are often absent. In many public schools, classrooms can exceed 60 learners, with limited time per lesson. Under such conditions, it is unrealistic to expect a single teacher to manage behaviour, provide emotional support, complete administrative tasks, and deliver meaningful instruction. Instead, the system compels teachers to rush through content without deliberate attention to each learner.

Consequences for learners

This has direct consequences for learners. Repetition and dropout rates persist not because learners are unwilling to work, but because systemic conditions shape what is possible in the classroom. When teaching is reduced to coverage rather than meaningful engagement, it raises critical questions about the quality of learning and helps explain persistent patterns of dropout and grade repetition across the South African education system. How can quality education be expected when teachers are not adequately prepared and supported? These challenges are especially pronounced in under-resourced schools, particularly in rural and township communities shaped by apartheid-era conditions. High levels of unemployment, poverty, and community violence are carried into classrooms, placing additional demands on teachers. Reports of violence in schools further highlight the risks associated with working in such environments.

Under these conditions, teaching is largely displaced by administrative demands and crisis management. What was once a profession grounded in purpose and passion is now, for many, associated with exhaustion and burnout. Teachers move through the curriculum rather than engaging meaningfully with learners, reducing teaching to delivery rather than interaction.

Reflecting on my own experience, I did not remain in the school system for even a year after qualifying as a teacher. The demanding and, at times, unsafe conditions I encountered, including in the schools where I grew up in Kimberley, compelled me to pursue further studies rather than remain in the profession. My experience is not unique. Many beginning teachers enter with passion, only to leave before they are fully developed in their roles. The profession is losing its younger cohort, while experienced teachers remain until retirement. This raises important questions about the quality of education being produced.

Teachers cannot be everything at once 

This is not a question of teachers lacking skill or commitment. It is a structural problem. In the absence of systematic induction systems, beginning teachers are expected to function as fully developed professionals without adequate support or guidance. In effect, they are expected to either “sink or swim” in complex, demanding school environments. High attrition rates among early-career teachers suggest that many are sinking rather than being supported to develop and succeed. Teachers are burning out not because they cannot teach, but because they are expected to be more than what they were trained to be.

If we are serious about improving education in South Africa, we must rethink how teachers are supported. This requires manageable class sizes, reduced administrative burdens, and the formalised and effective implementation of induction for early-career teachers. Most importantly, it means recognising that teachers cannot be everything at once.