By Kaya 959 News
Unemployed educators in the country say they are planning a March to the Union buildings over the lack of teaching jobs in the country.
The teachers are accusing the National Education Department of hiring people who pay bribes for teaching positions.
Spokesperson for the group, Noah Makole, says the provincial department has not responded to its two memorandums.
Makole says young educators should be given a fair opportunity to enter the field.
“We want to hand over our memorandum to the presidential office. Either Cyril Ramaphosa will be there, we want him. We want to address this issue, how can they say there is a shortage, and we can see there is a lot of schools that they are building around the province.”
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Vacant teaching posts
Meanwhile, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said in February that 1, 100 teachers died during the COVID-19 pandemic.
They are yet to be replaced.
Motshekga also revealed in April that there were a total of 24, 556 vacant teacher posts in the country.
However, the department said the figure did not mean that there is an actual shortage of teachers, nor did it mean that learners were being left unattended.
“It simply means the process of finalising the appointment of the people currently in the posts is ongoing,” the department said in a statement.
The department said some of its teacher recruitment strategies include:
- A register of qualified, yet unemployed graduates.
- The national recruitment base which is a register of qualified teachers who are not in the teaching profession.
- The district and community based teacher recruitment strategy for the Funza Lushaka bursary programme.
