Bhisho has appointed an additional 4000 teachers in an effort to prevent overcrowding in classrooms at many Eastern Cape schools.
This was revealed yesterday by provincial government spokesman Sizwe Kupelo, who said the information had been shared by education MEC Mandla Makupula at a meeting with premier Phumulo Masualle.
The drive to appoint the additional teachers started late last year, Kupelo said.
However, the South African Democratic Teacher’s Union (Sadtu) expressed its scepticism at the news.
The union’s provincial administrator Chris Mdingi said they were not aware of the 4000 teachers hired by the department.
He said the issue was never discussed with the union and asked the department of education to provide information about the appointments.
In October last year, the Daily Dispatch reported Makupula had announced 54747 teaching posts for this year, a decline from the 55796 for last year.
The reduction caused an outcry from unions and opposition parties, with the DA saying the MEC’s declaration left 2000 vacancies despite R1-billion being allocated to salaries for the year.
Provincial education spokesman Malibongwe Mtima confirmed 4000 teachers had been hired, saying they would be used to bring relief to schools which had multi-grade classes.
Multi-grade teaching occurs when different classes are combined due to a shortage of teachers for certain subjects.
Asked to provide details of where the teachers would be deployed, Mtima said he would only be able to provide the information next week.
He said the hiring had been completed during the process of finalising the distribution of posts declared by Makupula for schools.
“The department realised there were schools which had one or two teachers short.
“This decision was taken to avoid multi-grade teaching and these posts were distributed to them. Schools made submissions to the department.”
Mtima said the department was also in the process of appointing more teachers.
“A memo has been sent out to schools to make submissions on whether they were experiencing shortages or not.”
He said the department was aware of the possibilities of teacher shortages this year.
Mtima said department officials had not picked up on any shortages at schools during their visits on Wednesday.
Masualle had also visited several schools on Wednesday and Kupelo said the issue of teacher shortages had not been raised with him. “Things are looking good,” he said.
Sadtu remained sceptical. Mdingi said the union was only aware of 1665 vacancies that were in the process of being filled following an agreement with the department on Wednesday after the union lodged a dispute over teacher shortages.
A Sadtu administrator, Sindisile Zamisa, said the agreement had stipulated there would not be a change in the number of teachers at schools where the number of pupils remained the same as last year.
Zamisa said the union was striving to ensure every pupil had a teacher in their class.
“Schools are going to identify vacancies and submit profiles. We will go our way to address the shortages of teachers.”
The Daily Dispatch has reported on several cases of teacher shortages around the province in the past year.
In one case, close to 200 elderly men and women travelled from Mount Frere to the department of education’s head office in Zwelitsha to complain about overcrowding at their schools.
Parents said there was one teacher for 40 pupils at some of the schools. — msindisif@dispatch.co.za