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Education needs R137m to fill 502 posts in EC

17 Jul 2014

The provincial Education Department says it needs R137-million to fill 502 teacher vacancies for subjects such as maths, accounting, agriculture and physical science for for schools where Afrikaans is still the medium of instruction.

Mmthata's school in Norwood has excellent facilities but is just one of many schools in the Eastern Cape that does not have enough teachers because the Education Department doesn't have the money to pay them. Image: Panaramio

The department admitted this week to the Bhisho legislature they did not have the money to do this and the shortage of these specialist teachers affects close to 200,000 pupils in the province.

In an education portfolio committee meeting, the department's Chief Director of Human Resources Welile Payi told legislators more than 300 schools were affected by the shortage of specialised teachers.

As a result, 193,500 pupils were without those teachers.

The report Payi tabled to the committee showed that of the 23 education districts in the province, the most affected was Mthatha with 65 critical posts vacant, affecting 26,000 pupils.

Mthatha is followed closely by Lusikisiki which has 44 vacancies. The Port Elizabeth district has 42 vacant posts leaving more than 17,800 pupils in limbo while the East London district has nine vacancies in five schools affecting 1,173 pupils.

No money to pay teachers

The report also shows that, as of June 13 this year, provincial treasury had declared 35 vacancies in schools offering agriculture, with 2,0591 pupils affected by the absence of specialist teachers. To fill the vacancies for agriculture teachers, the department needs more than R9.1-million.

It needs more than R127-million to pay teachers for all the other critical subjects, bringing the total to R136.9m.

Payi attributed the department's failure to fill these posts is because it doesn't have the money to do so after the provincial treasury reduced its budget.

He said the budget, reduced by R458m has compromised the department's ability to fill vacant these posts".

Acting Superintendent-General Ray Tywakadi told the committee his department was engaging with provincial treasury to have the orginal amount of R458-million returned to it.

There were 719 under-qualified teachers in the system. The total number of vacancies stood at 3,319, the department said.

Source: Herald via I-Net Bridge

Source: I-Net Bridge

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