Politician Mmusi Maimane’s Build One South Africa movement (BOSA) handed a memorandum to the department of basic education in Pretoria, calling on Minister Angie Motshekga to provide a comprehensive response on why there are 24,000 vacant educator posts, yet thousands of teachers remain unemployed.
BOSA recently announced its partnership with the Unemployed Educators’ Movement of SA (UEMSA) in an effort to bring national attention to the cause of qualified but unemployed teachers in the country.
It is calling on the department to employ the nearly 30 000 unemployed, qualified teachers on the UEMSA database.
Under the partnership, BOSA and UEMSA have begun a programme of action to demand “tangible action” from the department of basic education.
In a memorandum handed over to a department official this week, BOSA said Motshekga had previously stated that there were 24 000 vacant educator posts, resulting in increasing class sizes and high learner-to-teacher ratios.
“Yet, the number of unemployed qualified educators continue to increase,” it said.
According to BOSA, the department of basic education is prioritising beneficiaries of its Fundza Lushaka bursary programme, despite its obligation to ensure that all educators are shortlisted equally, employed equally and fairly.
“The current employment strategy in the department lacks transparency and formal process and therefore does not ensure transparency and equal employment for all the unemployed qualified educators across all provinces is enacted,” the BOSA memorandum reads.
“We alert the [department of education] of the corruption in schools and districts, where school governing body members and district officials sell posts to the unemployed educators.”
It further states that the department does not cater for educators whose subjects are phased out and no plan or alternative exists, rendering these teachers redundant despite their experience or qualification.
BOSA has demanded that the department fully disclose the number of qualified unemployed educators in South Africa, the number of unemployed and qualified educators on the department’s database, the average turnaround time for the placement of teachers, the department’s strategy to close the gap and the time frame for the release of posts across all provinces.
BOSA also wants the department to conduct a third-party audit on the teachers’ intake process, the ratio of qualified educators to learners in the country and subject allocation to unqualified educators.
kailene.pillay@inl.co.za
Education