An impending teacher shortage crisis appears to be on the horizon for the basic education sector according to the South African Council for Educators (SACE). According to the teaching professions regulatory body’s research there is a shortage projection of 50 000 to 70 000 teachers by 2030.
SACE raised the matter while briefing the Portfolio Committee in a virtual meeting on their annual reports for the 2021/22 year. However, members of the legislative committee, disagreed with SACE's claim that there would be a teacher shortage in the future.
Given the difficulties in gathering data, members also questioned the professionalism of the teachers registered by SACE. Additionally, they questioned if SACE was doing enough to improve teachers' abilities.
What the media and other academics were projecting was not tallying with what they were projecting. There was a need to work hard to thoroughly analyse the numbers.
The committee also pointed out that, in certain subjects or areas of focus, such as the Early Childhood Development (ECD) sector, special needs education, the three-stream model, focus schools, and rural schools, there was a demand for quality and content.
Overall, throughout the time under review, 43 326 newly qualified teachers were registered. More reports of unethical behaviour have been made. With a total budget of R4 million, the Council had a total of 1 327 incidents of educator misconduct that needed to be handled in 2021–2022.
These reported instances were made up of 764 new cases that were received for the 2021/22 financial year in addition to 563 cases that were carried over from prior years.
