The department's proposals on the "occupation-specific dispensation" (OSD) would change the way teachers were remunerated, assessed, and moved between salary "notches", and would present new job descriptions for new categories of teachers, he said.
"We are waiting with bated breath. It will be the first time we see the thoughts of the employer on OSD and their views with regards to pay incentives," said Pasquallie.
Union leaders would take the proposals to their members, said Pasquallie.
Sadtu represents 220000 teachers across SA, and would meet education department negotiators in the Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) in Centurion next Thursday to discuss the proposals, he said.
Education director-general Duncan Hindle said the proposals included incentives for teachers of subjects that were short of staff, such as science, mathematics and information technology, and sweeteners for taking on "hardship posts" the department struggled to fill.
The proposal had been carefully worded to avoid the inherent judgments contained in earlier OSD proposals and which had hindered negotiations , he said.
"A lot will be discretionary to a province - a scarce teaching skill in one province might not be a scarce skill in another province.
" A rural school might get 50 applications to teach there while a province struggles to fill a post in an inner-city school. The proposal avoids judgments, which is where the problems were in the first ones," Hindle said. Sadtu was eager to see the department's plans, especially in the light of the failure of the Integrated Quality Management System (IQMS), which measures teacher performance Pasquallie said.
"We're very excited, it's all been very hush-hush," he said.
The IQMS was problematic because there were 330000 teachers to be assessed, each by their supervisor, but the supervisors were not given leave from their other work to do the assessments. The purpose of assessment should be development, but teachers had not been offered training, paid for by the department, to correct their weaknesses, Pasquallie said.
The Suid-Afrikaanse Onderwysersunie expected the department's proposals to include better salaries and, possibly, an easier progression through salary notches, said the union's executive officer Kobus Pieterse. "But I am thumb-sucking now, they have not leaked anything to us, so we won't know until tonight," he said while waiting outside the ELRC yesterday.
Dave Balt, president of the National Professional Teachers' Organisation of SA, said the union's leaders were "holding thumbs" and believed the delays were "good news".
Pieterse and Pasquallie said the department had approached the public service and administration department to approve several changes it had made to the original proposals, which had caused so many problems at this year's salary negotiations that they had been set aside for later discussion.
