Chatsworth teacher moonlighting in Thailand set to be fired

File photo: African News Agency (ANA)

File photo: African News Agency (ANA)

Published Jan 21, 2019

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Durban - A Chatsworth teacher who was discovered to be moonlighting at teaching jobs around the world including the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Thailand - while drawing a salary from the KZN department of education -  is expected to be fired from her post.

The teacher, who teaches at Summerfield Primary School in Chatsworth was caught out on Friday after an oversight inspection to the school by DA KZN Legislature MP's Rafeek Shah and George Mari. The pair were accompanied by officials from the department.

According to the DA, the inspection was conducted after receiving information that the teacher was on leave without pay from April to December 2018 after having exhausted her leave days for the year.

"During the oversight, the principal advised that both he and the school’s Governing Body had opposed the granting of leave to the teacher and had even written to the Department to request intervention. From our discussions, it appears that the teacher then sought authorisation directly from a relevant Departmental official who then authorised her ongoing leave," Rishigen Virana, DA KZN spokesman for education said. 

Virana said that according to the principal, the teacher’s prolonged absence has created an extremely difficult learning environment for pupils, with different replacement teachers in and out of the classroom.

"The situation is made worse by the fact that there are currently hundreds of unemployed teachers sitting on the Department’s database. This while an individual holds onto her post while jetting off to earning foreign currency," he said.

Muzi Mahlambi, spokesperson for the Department of Education said they were increasingly becoming aware of such incidents.

He said in this particular case, the department had frozen the teacher's salary and will be calculating how much the teacher should pay the department back for the month she was paid while away.

"This is the procedure when we become aware of such cases. The DA did not go alone to that school. Our officials were with them and as soon as we discovered this we went about taking action," he said.

Mahlambi said that the teacher in question "is going to be fired as she absconded".

Daily News

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