Bhisho says it has budget to fill vacant PE teaching posts

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

Eastern Cape Education MEC Mandla Makupula says budget is available to fill all substantive vacant teaching posts in Nelson Mandela Bay.

He was addressing the media at the Department's district offices in Port Elizabeth on Wednesday, following a meeting with school principals on the placement of teachers in vacant posts at their schools.

Schools in the Northern Areas were closed for several days last week in protest at the teacher shortages.

Makapula they're working hard to ensure that all 382 substantive vacant posts in PE are filled.

"Indeed there are funds to employ. We wouldn't have approved without having to check the availability of funds," he said.

The MEC said they are "working hard to ensure that all substantive vacancies in all our schools in Port Elizabeth are filled, especially the post level 1 educators. As at 18 August 2014, schools have indicated that they had 382 vacancies. Out of those, 232 were for post level teachers."

Makupula added that "in the numbers given by schools, our own matching of schools to available posts, has uncovered that some schools were asking for posts even though their post basket indicated that there were no vacancies." "That accounts for 30 posts in the total indicated.'

Makupula also said that he had been "frank in acknowledging" that there had been weaknesses in the past that led to unnecessary delays in the processing and filling of vacancies.

"....it is only through the conclusion of Collective Agreement 1 of 2013 with teacher unions that we had been able to move teachers in excess to schools that require their services. This step is very important in that vacancies can be filled quickly without the tedium of external recruitment," he said.