More than 50,000 permanent teachers in the Eastern Cape are set to keep their jobs in 2025, with the department ruling out retrenchments.
The department ended 2024 with a teacher shortage of 221.
A total of 52,817 teacher posts were declared by education MEC Fundile Gade at the start of the year.
The vacancies, which have stood below 1% since June, are seen as an “acceptable norm” by the department.
Provincial education spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima described them as minimal.
The same number of posts have been declared for 2025 and schools with vacancies in January will appoint temporary teachers until the department’s process of redeployment is complete.
Mtima said this was to avert the over-employment of teachers.
“A new declaration has been made by the MEC for the 2025 academic year.
“Schools received their staff establishments for 2025, and new appointments will be made in 2025 after the process of teacher redeployment is completed.
“When the process of redeployment is complete and there are vacancies, then new appointments will be made.”
By the end of December, the province had 52,596 permanent teachers, a slight decline from the 52,727 recorded in June.
Mtima said teacher employment was “a moving target”.
“The department strives to fill all posts at all material times. However, the system is fluid as every month there are teachers that exit the system due to normal age retirement, early retirement, ill-health retirement, resignation and death.
“Therefore, there are always vacancies ... Nonetheless, vacancies are always below 1%.”
Mtima confirmed that no Eastern Cape teachers would be retrenched in 2025.
This was initially announced by Gade after a meeting with education minister Siviwe Gwarube earlier in December.
In September, Gwarube announced that seven provincial education departments would face huge, unsustainable budget shortfalls by 2027/2028.
Mtima said the Eastern Cape was not among the affected provinces.
Potential education budget cuts affect the hiring and retaining of teachers.
Earlier in 2024, the Western Cape education department declared 2,400 teaching positions would be eliminated in 2025.
Gwarube, however, assured parliament there would be no teacher retrenchments in 2025. She said teacher numbers would remain as they were, though she would have liked to hire more.
The Eastern Cape education department came under scrutiny from the provincial education committee for underspending on its administration budget, which is used for recruitment of educators and officials to critical posts.
In the first six months of the current financial year, the department underspent its administration budget by R129m, continuing a pattern of underspending stretching back to the previous four financial years.
Gade said: “We have advertised 793 posts in the Eastern Cape education department, and 730 of those posts have already been filled and are on site.
“Additionally, the 24 senior members of the department’s top management are busy with interviews now. They must get the appointment letters [out] on January 10.
“All vetting will have to be done during the course of December and the first week of January. We don’t have a recruitment crisis.”
The education committee instructed the department to expedite the filling of vacant funded posts to avoid under-expenditure.
The department is expected to present a progress report to the committee in January.
DA MPL Horatio Hendricks said the under-expenditure trend in filling posts was unacceptable.
“The department has set a target of filling just 80% of vacancies — a goal that is already far too modest. Yet, for the past four years it has consistently failed to meet its own poor target.
“For four years, year after year, the department has been 40% short of filling funded vacancies, leaving classrooms without qualified educators.
“This issue goes beyond numbers. It’s about real children, real classrooms, and the lives they’re meant to build.
“Teachers are missing, classrooms are overcrowded, and the futures of our children are being compromised by this ongoing crisis.”
The EFF’s Zikhona Njoli said the trend reflected a department that was not meeting its financial obligations.
“The chronic underspending on employees is a recurring failure that leaves critical posts for teachers, therapists and psychologists vacant.
“The inability to meet a mere 80% of filling teaching posts shows inefficiency in addressing a teacher shortage, particularly for critical posts.”
Gade said the department was expected to have a new head of department by January, a year after the death of Dr Soyisile Nuku, who acted as HOD.
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