Testing times: SA’s teacher shortage is set to go from bad to worse

Most Western Cape teachers retire at the age of 60 instead of 65 “because they just can’t cope with the pressures in the environment”.

And the Free State education department warned that “not every Tom, Dick and Harry” should be allowed to join the teaching profession.

These were some of the comments made during a national dialogue on teacher supply and demand that was convened by the department of higher education in partnership with basic education and the South African Council for Educators on April 21.

The dialogue followed the release of a comprehensive study on the issue by researchers Servaas van der Berg, Martin Gustafsson and Cobus Burger from Stellenbosch University.

The academics projected that 39,500 new teachers would be needed in public schools in 2025 and 52,000 in 2030.

“A bulge of older educators is reaching retirement, and as this bulge exits the system an exceptionally large number of joiners are needed,” their report said.

Michelle Mathey, director of teacher education at the department of higher education, said their latest 2020 teacher education graduation and employment report indicated that 30,000 graduates were produced in 2020.

“If we increase it by about 1,000 a year, and that’s optimistic, we will only reach 40,000 in terms of absolute numbers by 2030. So there’s definitely a gap.”

She said that according to another report there were only 28,000 graduates in 2018 and the data revealed that only 43% of these were employed at public schools.

The problem we are experiencing is a number of teachers appointed as temporary educators are in posts for which they don’t have qualifications.

—  Sandile Beuzana from the Northern Cape education department

Leticia Munday, director of education human resource planning, provisioning and monitoring at basic education, said there had been “a general stagnation in the growth of state paid posts, despite a steady growth in pupil numbers over the last five years”.

“There is also evidence that most provincial education departments are not able to fill all posts allocated, hence the high vacancy rate, especially in promotional posts.”

She said declining funding and budget cuts had led to a “backlog” in providing educator posts.

“The expected ‘tidal wave’ of attritions stemming from retirements, which will increase the replacement demand, will put additional pressure on declining financial resources.”

Munday said the perennial challenge had been “the skewed supply of qualified educators, both in terms of the schooling phase, subject and language specialisation and general supply in rural areas”.

According to a presentation by Ray Tywakadi, head of curriculum in Eastern Cape, there were 2,426 vacant posts at the end of March.

The total number of funded teaching posts in the province was 52,943 for this year and at least 26.3% of teachers were between 55 and 64 years old.

He said the biggest challenge was schools with a total enrolment of less than 200 pupils offering more than 10 subject combinations.

“Small schools that are offering 10 or more subject combinations with less than 20 pupils in grade 12 are struggling to implement effective teaching, learning and assessment.”

Sandile Beuzana from the Northern Cape education department, said that 1,934 of the province’s 9,537 teachers were between 55 and 65 years old.

A total of 2,364 teachers were lost between April last year and March through death, resignation, retirement, being dismissed or their contracts having expired.

“The problem we are experiencing is a number of teachers appointed as temporary educators are in posts for which they don’t have qualifications.”

He said universities must source the latest data from provinces and that the recruitment of potential teachers must be based on the needs identified by provinces.

“The recruitment of potential teachers must start in the early grades in the FET [grades 10 to 12] phase.”

Matthys Cronje, chief director of people management in the Western Cape education department, said an average of 1,600 teachers exited the system annually, including about 900 who retire.

He said that 63% of the teaching force last year were below the age of 50 and that, on average, about 950 teachers below the age of 30 were being employed for the first time annually.

According to Cronje, about 5,063 teachers between 55 and 65 years old would be retiring over the next five years.

“The supply of foundation phase [grades R, one, two and three] teachers, especially language teachers in isiXhosa, requires attention.”

Meanwhile, Gauteng lost 3,903 teachers, including 472 who died, between April last year and March.

Obed Moila, an official from the Gauteng education department, said it was anticipated that 5,080 teachers would retire over the next five years.

He proposed that a study be conducted into the reasons why the number of pupils studying commercial subjects, particularly accounting in grades 10 to 12, was declining.

Tello Khodumo, acting director for human resources in the Free State education department, said they were busy filling some of the 2,266 vacant posts.

He said though they had a database of 7,434 unemployed teachers in the province, many had qualifications that were “not desirable”.

“Some of the bachelor of education qualifications don’t have the required two school subjects that should have been studied up to the third-year level at university. This is a real quality issue that universities need to look at.”

He quoted the example of newly qualified primary school teachers not being ready to teach grade seven.

“We must be careful we don’t devalue teaching as a profession by just allowing any Tom, Dick and Harry to come into the profession,” he said.