Durban – One month into the new school year and several KwaZulu-Natal schools do not have the required number of teachers because of the Education Department’s failure to deal with the redistribution of staff.
According to the Sadtu, this has been caused by the Department of Education’s bungling of the post-provisioning norms (PPN) process, which is supposed to move teachers where numbers of pupils are low to schools where numbers are high.
This process had, however, contributed further to the problem of overcrowding in the classrooms, Sadtu said.
The union said on Thursday that it had received reports that many schools in the province did not have teachers, including those in the scarce-skilled subjects such as maths, science and accounting.
The union’s provincial secretary, Nomarashiya Caluza, said they were concerned at the way the KwaZulu-Natal education department was handling the redistribution of staff.
Teachers were being moved as school enrolment increased at some schools while it decreased at some schools, forcing a change in the staff complement.
She said that while the union understood that staff would have to be moved, it was concerned at the way the department was going about it.
“The employer has not developed the requisite capacity to deal with this exercise yearly, and the situation deteriorates and collapses in the hands of those who are expected to be efficient,” she said.
“These institutional deficiencies, (that) are camouflaged in promises and announcements, are not made to benefit the learner.”
Caluza cited an incident at a school in Amajuba (Newcastle) district where, because schooling numbers had dropped, the department had ordered that one of the school’s heads of department had to be moved to another school.
The problem was that this HOD was the only person qualified to teach maths and science. His moving would leave the school with no one to teach these two critical subjects.
Such poor administration was seriously affecting schools. “That is why we are having this yo-yo style when it comes to the matric results,” she said.
The problem of teacher redistribution affected primarily rural and township schools.
Caluza said these schools were not in a position to collect school fees, so that where the department fell short, they could fill the gap.
The parent body was simply too poor.
“Educators carry the burden of staff shortages as they have to contend with overcrowded classes while the employer is frantically redistributing educators endlessly,” she said.
She said redistribution was playing havoc with teachers’ lives and impacting on pupils, and that there was a failure on the part of the Education Department to properly administer the redistribution of teachers.
There were about 2 800 teachers who had been impacted on this year by the redistribution.
Kwazi Mthethwa, the spokesperson for the MEC of Education, said they were aware of the challenges .
He said the teacher distribution issue was something being handled and discussed at the national level.
“We are working at resolving this challenge. A solution regarding this issue will be reached soon, working with various stakeholders,” he said.