Teachers, Needs You
Assistants wanted as 17,000 educators with comorbidities cannot return to schools and department struggles to salvage ravaged academic year
The department of education is in a race against time to temporarily replace about 20,000 teachers who won’t be able to return to class due to comorbidities.
With more grades expected back to class in just two weeks, teacher unions and other education stakeholders including school governing bodies raised concerns on this issue as grade 7s returned to school.
Provinces are now scrambling for solutions as the number of substitute teachers may not be able to plug all the gaps when more grades return to school in two weeks.
KZN and the Eastern Cape already have 5,970 and 5,608 applications respectively from teachers with comorbidities who don’t want to return to class.
Eastern Cape education department spokesperson Mali Mtima said they currently needed 3,871 teachers, mainly for science, maths, geography and languages.
KZN education spokesperson Sihle Mlotshwa said they have approved 4,475 applications, and would rely on substitute teachers to plug the gaps.
Northern Cape education spokesperson Geoffrey van der Merwe said the departhad received a total of 2,044 applications. He said to date there were 1,110 applications that were approved for teachers to work from home.
“The profile of these educators are spread across the curriculum and cover a wide range of subjects. We are taking into consideration the need to accommodate the teachers with comorbidities in critical subjects and the anticipated return of all grades [and] a huge shortfall is expected,” he said.
Limpopo, which has already approved 1,761 applications from teachers with comorbidities, has received 2,015 applications, according to spokesperson Tidimalo Chuene.
Chuene admitted that there was a risk that the number of vacancies to be created may be greater than available teachers.
“With the number of applications by educators with comorbidity there is a risk that the available number of substitute posts might not be able to cover available vacancies and thus our shift towards e-education,” Chuene said.
She said the province was already working towards designing non-contact programmes for pupils, including delivering lessons through radio, online platforms and television.
The Western Cape which is already recruiting classroom assistants has 2,761 teachers who have applied for special work arrangements.
Spokesperson Kerry
Mauchline said some of their interventions would include applying for substitute teachers if a teacher falls ill, and using classroom assistants if a teacher has comorbidities.
Mauchline said the classroom assistants would help deliver lessons in instances where teachers cannot be in class due to comorbidities.
She said although there was no set budget for the employment of classroom assistants, they were utilising budgets for other provincial education programmes which couldn’t happen due to Covid-19.
The North West, which has 2,632 teachers who either have comorbidities or are over the age of 60 years old, has already approved 735 applications for teachers not to return to class in two weeks.
National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa’s (Naptosa) executive director Basil Manuel said they were worried about possible “blank spots” that exist as people who are not properly vetted or screened may be roped into the education system.
Matakanye Matakanye, general secretary of the National Association of School Governing Bodies, said the department needed to come on board and clarify the issues of teachers with comorbidities as it seems there was no clear plan.
“There is a school in northern areas of Port Elizabeth with only one teacher who doesn’t have comorbidities and they now don’t know what to do,” Matakanye said.
Belinda Brown of Bethvale Primary’s SGB at Bethelsdorp, Port Elizabeth, said only one of their five grade 7 teachers did not have comorbidities.
“Now other teachers of other grades are forced to teach grade 7s, so what’s going to happen in two weeks when other grades are back?”