The education department in KwaZulu-Natal is recruiting teachers who retired and who accepted voluntary severance packages as part of its strategy to relieve educator shortages in certain subjects.
Christi Naudé, spokesperson for the department, said 426 teachers have already been registered on the provincial database.
The database will be used to select educators for part-time or contract positions when there are no teachers available to teach certain subjects. Affected subjects include mathematics, physical science, travel and tourism, biology, accounting and economics.
‘When we need someone to teach mathematics in Jozini, we can look at the database and use somebody in the area to help out,” Naudé said.
A breakthrough in the provincial chamber of the education labour relations council (ELRC) is also expected to alleviate teacher shortages.
Naudé said the provincial ELRC had agreed to extend an existing agreement which allows graduates who don’t have teaching qualifications to be temporarily employed in specialist areas such as ballet or Greek.
The agreement in the ELRC allows for an extension to subjects such as mathematics, physical science, accounting, biology, economics and business economics. Graduates in these subject areas without teaching qualifications can now also be temporarily employed.
In a further move to increase the number of qualified teachers amid shortages, the department has been upskilling some 3 000 educators. It has also been offering bursaries to students to major in critical subject areas such as maths and science.
This year 78 students have received bursaries from the department.