Frustrated unemployed teachers in KwaZulu-Natal have called for help from the newly formed political party led by former president Jacob Zuma as they struggle to find jobs.
The group, calling itself Unemployed Educators, said they had requested a meeting with the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party in the hope that Zuma could use his influence to address their plight.
According to the general secretary of the Unemployed Educators, Sboniso Dumakude, the two organisations met just after 5pm on Wednesday afternoon. The meeting had originally been scheduled to start at 10am.
“We asked for the meeting because MK might have the legal resources that unemployed educators do not. We wanted to speak to the former president because we know he might still have influence with the department. We know things were tough under his administration, but since his departure things have got worse.”
Dumakude said qualified teachers were frustrated as they sit at home, adding that there were stumbling blocks that prevent their employment.
He said one of their concerns was the online app used to hire teachers. Teachers are supposed to register their information on it so it can generate a list of available teachers to fill vacancies according to the needs of schools.
The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education launched the KZN Qualified Educators app in 2020 to make it easier for qualified teachers who are unemployed to get jobs.
“That app is dysfunctional,” said Dumakude.
“Every year we hear stories that because many people had applied through the app, it has crashed. You apply and you never hear back about your application, sometimes you can’t even find the information that you registered.”
He said they want the app to be scrapped and the process to employ teachers transformed.
“Then there is the issue of Post-Provisioning Norm (PPN). Every year the department say they will hire more teachers when the issue of PPN is resolved, but that is a never-ending cycle, there are always teachers without schools,” said Dumakude.
“The fact is that there is always work, it’s just that the department is not willing to hire more teachers. For instance, you find the teacher to pupil ratio in high school is supposed to be 1-25 but the reality is it is 1-49.”
In primary school, the situation is much worse, you find a teacher is teaching a class supposed to be taught by two people.”
Approached for comment, Department of Education spokesperson Muzi Mahlambi said they were waiting for the memorandum of grievances to be delivered to the department.
The Mercury