School bell tolls for education to fill posts

Education MEC Mandla Makupula yesterday publicly declared that his department of education was ready for the opening of schools tomorrow.

However, there were some concerns that not all 4308 teacher, deputy principal and principal posts declared vacant last year will be filled as promised by the time the school bell rings.

The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) secretary in the province Chris Mdingi said not many of the posts would be filled by then and the union was giving the department until the end of next month to complete the task.

Makupula said the post “basket” for teachers for all schools in the province was declared in August last year to ensure that by the time schools open tomorrow, schools were aware of the number of teachers that would be allocated to them.

The MEC was speaking in a live 10-minute video posted on the department of education’s Facebook page yesterday.

“As I am speaking to you, I am confident that we are ready for the 2018 academic year,” said Makupula.

In October last year, the department embarked on a major recruitment drive to find 3000 teachers, 308 principals and 1000 deputy principals to fill vacant posts.

At the time, the department said it hoped to fill the vacancies by the end of the year.

However, speaking to the Dispatch yesterday, education spokesman Malibongwe Mtima said the department was still in the process of appointing candidates to these posts.

“We have filled the majority of the posts, with appointment letters issued already to successful applicants. In cases where the posts have not been filled, we have extended the contracts of temporary teachers until the appointment process has been completed,” said Mtima.

According to the post-provisioning norms (PPN) for 2017-18 declared by the department’s superintendent-general Themba Kojana last year, 54026 posts were needed this year, with 6377 for non-teaching support staff for public schools. The figure is 721 less than the 2016-17 allocation of 54747.

In a new development, close to 2000 new posts were declared for foundation phase support, including Grade R.

The department also declared that no schools would have a teacher-pupil ratio of more than 1:36 and no school would lose posts unless there had been a decrease of more than 40 pupils since November 2016.

The chairman of the education portfolio committee at the Bhisho legislature, Fundile Gade, said teacher provision had always been a problem but when they visited schools this week, they hoped to find a teacher in front of every class.

“When school reopens , we expect the process of teacher provision to be complete, with teachers issued appointment letters and dispensed to schools, following the bulletins that were advertised late last year,” said Gade.

Sadtu’s Mdingi said: “We want all funded vacant posts to filled, especially with the high unemployment rate and the huge teacher shortage.

“What happens to the money that funds these posts? Why is the department failing to fill them?

“We cannot deny that the department has done something to address some of its challenges but we also cannot deny what they failed to do.”

Sadtu expected the department to fill all the remaining posts by the middle of next month.

Mtima said stationery had been delivered to schools, and textbooks had also been delivered with outstanding workbooks to be delivered to all schools by the end of this month.

In Mthatha, Jersey Farm Junior Secondary principal Luvuyo Ntsepo is prepared for the usual flood of late admissions.

“It could have been done last year but we are ready. The entire staff has reported for duty, we have also received most of the stationery and we expect to receive the textbooks by the end of the week,” Ntsepo said.

Storm damage to the school had also been repaired. — arethal@dispatch.co.za/zipon@dispatch.co.za