Education suspends filling of non-teaching posts
To curtail serious financial constraints due to the economic downturn experienced, the education ministry has announced the suspension of filling non-teaching vacancies during the remaining 2020/21 financial year as well as 2021/22 period until further notice.
Education ministry executive director Sanet Steenkamp said the ministry continues to experience serious financial constraints due to the economic downturn and downward revision of the appropriation budget for the 2021/22 financial year.
After the budget consultations between the education and finance ministries, Steenkamp noted it was decided to freeze all non-teaching vacancies during the current and next financial years until further notice.
“All non-teaching vacant posts, whether at schools, regional offices or head office are suspended and should not be advertised,” she maintained.
However, she added if such posts are deemed critical, prior approval must be obtained from the Secretary to Cabinet after a thorough assessment has been done to ascertain the importance and criticality of such posts.
Further, she announced all submissions for the filling of critical posts should include a strong motivation, together with proof of compliance to the post provisioning norms and availability of funds.
The ministry indicated all advertised posts before such information notice must be concluded in terms of the recruitment policy framework in the public service and no new adverts of non-teaching posts will be entertained.
It was also directed that all regional directorates of education, arts and culture should attain net recruitment by recruiting from within, such as the transfer of teachers from the overstaffed schools to understaffed schools or fill the vacancies with teachers who are additional to the establishment.
Additionally, all principals and heads of departments are expected to teach as per the allocated workload to the teaching fraternity.
Steenkamp said government schools and hostels’ teaching staff members must be allocated workload.
For teachers, the workload is 100%, head of departments is 75%, while principals will be allocated 25%.