Teacher mobility: A loss to South African schools?

One of the most striking posters on the wall of a corridor in the faculty where I happen to work and which I have to pass on a daily basis en route to teaching a PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education for pre-service teachers) class reads as follows: 'Why teach in the United Kingdom (UK) when you can help the Western Cape [one of nine provinces in South Africa]... Our children need you more than you need money.' For me this poster foregrounds not only the apparent loss or migration of teachers to the UK, but also the contestation between excessive (atomistic) individualism and communitarianism. Pre-service and in-service teachers might argue that their individual rights permit them to seek employment in a foreign country for reasons which range from a need to pay off their study loans to being disillusioned with the escalating crime levels in South Africa. I have sympathy for many of these teachers but want to argue that their attention to social (communitarian) rights would be more favourable towards the achievement of social justice in the country after decades of apartheid rule. Simply put, I want to argue that teacher migration and/or loss is incommensurate with the enjoyment of social (communitarian) rights - a situation that could in turn potentially threaten the achievement of social justice. That is, this situation could exacerbate the deteriorating conditions in poorly resourced and dysfunctional South African schools, which can potentially undermine teaching and learning.