Teacher shortages at Port Elizabeth schools under the spotlight

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

School principals and parents from dozens of primary and high schools in Port Elizabeth's northern areas met on Thursday over ongoing teacher shortages at their schools.

At a public meeting, they said that quality teaching and learning was being sabotaged by the current crisis.

Schools also mentioned the possibility of closing their doors in the midst of the ongoing struggle to fund vacants posts from their own coffers.

Astra Primary School principal, Desmond Lewis, said there are 6 vacancies at his school which were filled by using student teachers who are on the Funza Lushaka bursary scheme.

"We had to pay them from January up until now as an SGB there is no more money to pay these people. I went back to the parents explained the situation, and we having a follow up meeting. The parents must decide on a way forward because we are basically penniless." says Lewis.

Greg Mc Cullum, the deputy principal at Sanctor Primary School, says they're also battling with a shortage of educators.

"We expected that the redeployment process would have followed route and our shortage would of been sorted out. We have 3 substantive vacant posts at the moment and technically we have 5 posts open because of our staff establishment having being reduced to 21 to 18 which includes the principal." says Mc Cullum.

Meanwhile, Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga says 267 public school teachers have been fired over the past two-and-a-half years.

She says a further 631 were suspended, and 249 placed on "precautionary suspension", during the same period.

In a written reply to a parliamentary question by Democratic Alliance MP Gordon Mackay tabled on Thursday, she said the figures were for all provinces except KwaZulu-Natal, where such information was not available in time.

The figures include the 2012/13 and 2013/14 financial years, as well as the period from April 1 this year to date.

According to the Minister's reply, 242 of the teachers involved in the disciplinary actions were SA Democratic Teachers Union members.