While teacher shortages at some schools are still a serious problem, provincial education departments failed to employ almost 1,400 new teachers who received government funding to complete their studies.
The biggest culprit was KwaZulu-Natal, which only managed to place 277 out of the 681 recipients of the Funza Lushaka bursary by the end of last year.
The Eastern Cape only employed 393 of the 699 teacher graduates, while Mpumalanga placed 228 out of the 417 in schools.
These figures were revealed in parliament by the department of basic education on Tuesday during its presentation of its performance for the third quarter of the 2022/23 financial year.
MPs also heard that most districts across the country failed to achieve the target of implementing a programme to end school-related, gender-based violence.
Only five districts, including one in Free State and four in Gauteng, were able to provide evidence of having implemented such a programme.
Some of the major highlights in the months of October, November and December last year:
- A total of 920,934 candidates sat for the November matric exams that were completed without significant irregularities.
- The reach of the national deworming programme in four provinces, namely Gauteng, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Free State was more than 1.1-million.
- A total of 12,094 Funza Lushaka bursaries were awarded by December, which was 294 more than the target.
MPs also heard there was a 100% delivery of the more than 31-million volume 1 workbooks to schools for the 2023 academic year.
The State Security Agency (SSA) and department of basic education conducted site inspections and audits at provincial education departments’ printing, packaging, storage and distribution sites for the matric exam question papers.
The meeting was told that additional funding had been allocated by National Treasury to early childhood development over the next three years and a funding proposal had been put together to indicate how those funds would be allocated.
At least 434 teachers were trained in digital skills, while the department collaborated with SchoolNet to train an extra 5,000 teachers on how to integrate ICTs (information and communication technology) into teaching and learning.
According to the presentation, 31 district teacher development centres received information technology interns from the University of South Africa, while 12 teacher centres received new devices from Vodacom.
Extensive training was also provided to teachers, with 66 grade 8 maths teachers and 194 foundation phase numeracy educators trained in Eastern Cape in November.
I cannot understand how we cannot place these graduates who are ready to go to schools when we have a shortage of teachers. What is the department going to do about this?
— MP Marina van Zyl
A total 49 maths literacy teachers from Free State received training on content and school-based assessments in October, while 43 from Limpopo and 215 from KwaZulu-Natal were trained in the same month.
MP Marina van Zyl questioned why 1,394 new teachers had not been placed at schools despite an oversight visit to KwaZulu-Natal a few weeks ago indicating there were teacher vacancies.
“I cannot understand how we cannot place these graduates who are ready to go to schools when we have a shortage of teachers. What is the department going to do about this?”
Another MP, Baxolile Nodada, asked whether the department could provide statistics on unfilled or vacant teacher posts.
“Is there still a moratorium on the appointment of teachers,” he asked.
Nodada also asked whether there was a “strategic mechanism” that is going to help with the professional development of teachers.
“You do find there is a massive challenge of quality teaching in the classroom.”
Responding to some of the questions raised by MPs, basic education minister Angie Motshekga said she received a report on Monday on teacher vacancies in circuits, districts and provinces “where the challenges are”.
“Obviously, education being an intensely human resource endeavour, we have people moving in and out, and we have to be employing on an ongoing basis.”
She said that concerning teachers, especially in KwaZulu-Natal, minister of finance Enoch Godongwana “even gave special funding to education because if you place [a teacher at a school] you have to pay”.
“KwaZulu-Natal has been allocated extra funds, and I know the MEC and her team have started looking at placement.”
Motshekga said not only some Funza Lushaka graduates were outside the system.
“We have a bittersweet problem. It’s sweet because we are at a stage where we have enough supply on the side.
“But it’s bitter because you don’t want young people, even through Funza, NSFAS [National Student Financial Aid Scheme] or even through their parents’ funds, who have completed university and are unable to find jobs.”
She said there was a need to find placement for young graduates soon after completion of studies.
Commenting on the unplaced graduates, basic education department director-general Mathanzima Mweli said experts, particularly from higher education, were saying there was no “absolute shortage of teachers”.
“But it’s relative. It’s in certain subjects, like the gateway subjects, though Funza Lushaka has really responded to that compared to what we used to have before.”
He said they closely monitored the placement of teachers at schools.
Mweli said the almost 1,400 unplaced teachers might not have been placed “because we don’t need them”.
“When the vacancies occur, people who have graduated cannot necessarily be placed because the vacancies have not occurred for them.”
He said vacancies could arise in the different phases, for example, the foundation phase (grades R to 3).
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