Why are there so many temporary teachers?

Staff Reporter

7 OCT 2008, 03:00

4 min read

Almost 32 000 teachers in South Africa are employed on a temporary basis, according to the national department of education. Education Minister Naledi Pandor revealed this figure during the national assembly’s “internal questions session” when she responded to questions from DA member George Boinamo.

Boinamo sought to establish the number of temporary teachers employed in each province, how long each teacher had worked, the reasons for each being employed on a temporary basis, whether the minister had taken any steps to cut down the numbers of temporary teachers and the nature of such steps.

Pandor said that as of July 2008 31 949 temporary teachers were employed by the various education departments, “one in three” of them in KwaZulu-Natal.

A total of 27 323 (86%) of these teachers have been in service for less than two years filling “substantive posts that are in the process of being filled through the advertisement of vacancy lists”, she said.

As for the remaining 4 626 (14%), Pandor said she had “directed the education department to establish why they have been employed in such a capacity for more than two years”.

Questioned about whether she had taken steps to reduce the number of temporary teachers the minister said she had intervened through the applicable and relevant sections of the labour law of 2005, which stipulate that “no temporary educator can be employed in the same substantive and vacant post for more than two years”.

Pandor highlighted the following points as key to determining the number of posts available at each school:

Each provincial education department finalises its post-provisioning consultations by September 1 and provides schools with their final staff establishments by September 30.

In September school principals verify staff establishments and inform provincial departments of education whether teachers will retire or resign from their posts during the last part of the year.

This information informs the process of appointment of teachers to vacant posts at the start of a new academic year.

The appointment process normally takes the form of requested internal and cross transfers, placement and absorption of educators additional to establishment, or the selection of temporary educators (new entrants, and those with a break in service).

In a new year provincial departments adjust the staff establishments of schools after a proper analysis of the 10th-day snap survey. The survey is standard practice whereby, on the 10th day after the start of every academic year, the education department collects data about the number of learners, teachers, support staff and so on. Temporary teachers are then appointed on contracts, which run from January 1 to December 31.

Provincial education departments finalise a list of all vacancies by April 30 of each year. If a teacher has been employed on a temporary contract for more than two years, the contract must be converted from temporary to permanent. This measure only applies if an educator is in a substantive and vacant post and is qualified to teach in the learning areas/grades specified.

This conversion from temporary to permanent must be supported by the school governing body with the approval of the provincial department of education’s head and is implemented by July 1 of each year.

The rest of the vacancies are advertised in an open vacancy list, which is filled on January 1 of the following school year.

There will always be temporary educators employed in schools.

Although, according to the guidelines, at any given time temporary educators should not make up more than 10% of total educator posts in a provincial department of education, the percentage of vacant posts occupied by temporary teachers was 15,5% in 2006 and 14,5% in 2008.

In May this year the national education department indicated that 62 616 posts of a total of 433 280 were vacant.