Teacher vacancies soar to over 31,000 in South Africa

The Minister of Basic Education of South Africa Angie Motshekga has recently revealed in a written parliamentary reply that there are currently 31,462 teacher vacancies in the country. The response was to a question posed by Democratic Alliance's (DA) Baxolile Nodada.

KwaZulu-Natal is the province with the highest number of vacancies at 7,044. The Eastern Cape follows with 6,111 openings, and Limpopo ranks third for the most number of postings with 4,933. The Western Cape and Gauteng tally 4,497 and 3,898 respectively.

Nodada said the figures starkly show the ANC’s disregard for basic education, and that "it is sadly unsurprising that our real matric pass rate sits at 55.3%."

Motshekga further said in her reply:

"The filling of vacant posts at schools is an ongoing process to ensure that there is no class without a teacher for all grades. For Post Level One vacancies, schools are allowed to recruit at a local level and immediately as the vacancy occurs and make temporary appointments.

"These appointments are then made permanent upon ensuring that the educator meets the requirements of the post. By law, a temporary appointment in a vacant substantive post must be made permanent after three months.

"In the case of promotional posts, schools are allowed to make acting appointments, especially for critical posts such as those of Departmental Head and Principal while the formal recruitment and selection process is undertaken.

"In addition, in order to address immediate workload challenges that result from vacant promotional posts, schools are allowed to appoint temporary educators against a vacant promotional post until the vacant promotion post is filled."