About 25 000 public schools opened their doors to 12-million pupils last month, with apparent lack of drama. But this should not lull South Africans into assuming they are in for a quiet school year. Two time bombs are ticking below the surface: threats by some education bureaucracies against “under-performing” schools; and complications that could arise from government moves towards free schooling for poor learners.

About 25 000 public schools opened their doors to 12-million pupils last week, with apparent lack of drama. But this should not lull South Africans into assuming they are in for a quiet school year. Two time bombs are ticking below the surface: threats by some education bureaucracies against “under performing” schools; and complications that could arise from government moves towards free schooling for poor learners.

Turmoil is set to continue in the upper echelons of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) after two senior academics vowed this week to take legal action against the university. This follows the UKZN council’s announcement recently of a tribunal’s findings into allegations of sexual harassment against its two top officials, council chair Vincent Maphai and vice-chancellor Malegapuru Makgoba.

Large numbers of children are disappearing from the school system before they have a chance to write matric — and the government still has little idea of why this is happening. Last year, 528 525 pupils wrote matric — the largest number in five years. But tracking this cohort back to its grade-nine class in 2003 tells a troubling story.

For a man about to step into the torrid glare of the top job at Stellenbosch University, Russel Botman exudes a surprising degree of genial serenity. But then this is also the man of whom the Christian magazine Lig said: ”Russel ry in die Here se kruiwa [Russel rides in the Lord’s wheelbarrow].”

University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) acting deputy vice-chancellor Pumela Msweli-Mbanga has claimed that she was victimised after rebutting sexual advances by senior colleagues, and suggested that this lay behind problems she encountered in advancing her career at UKZN. The allegations are contained in Msweli-Mbanga’s complaint to the UKZN council in November, which the Mail & Guardian has seen.

The KwaZulu-Natal government has told 5 000 adult literacy teachers — teaching 40 000 learners — that they will not be paid for the next three months because the provincial education department has overspent its budget. After a ”bruising” meeting with the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union recently, department officials apparently agreed to pay the teachers for November.

Zimbabwe’s loss is set to be South Africa’s gain, as the education department casts covetous eyes on the growing pool of highly qualified Zimbabwean schoolteachers who have fled their home country. The department’s Director General, Duncan Hindle, told the Mail & Guardian that it is targeting Zimbabweans in a plan that will simultaneously encourage South African high school teachers to improve their skills.

In a bid to avert a growing crisis in the supply of schoolteachers, the government is to introduce bursaries for students training to enter the profession. About 20 000 of the country’s 350 000 public school teachers leave the system every year, but universities annually produce only 6 000 new teachers.