Infrastructure projects stalled

Portfolio Committee on Basic Education, acting chairperson Sedukanelo Tshepo Louw, after coming across several unfished projects during an oversight visit in the province last week also called for an investigation into abandoned projects, emphasising the need for consequence management to prevent further financial mismanagement.

“Consequence management is important. The department should do an investigation and should be able to tell us that they have opened a case against a contractor and we going to recoup our money so that the schools can continue.

“The more we do not deal with those who take the public money and do not follow the right procedures, we will forever be in a disaster because we are giving money for free; it’s Christmas. There is no consequence management,” Louw said.

KwaZulu-Natal boasts the highest number of public schools in South Africa, with a remarkable total of 6,000 institutions. In addition, the province has achieved an impressive pass rate of 89.5% in the 2024 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations, highlighting its commitment to educational excellence.

However, the looming threat of potential job cuts has also raised concerns that the province's hard-won progress in improving its educational outcomes may be compromised.

Unemployed teachers lose hope

Meanwhile, some unemployed teachers have also raised concerns following the minister's revelation about the potential job cuts, Noxolo Ntuli, a qualified teacher, said she was losing hope about ever getting a job in the education sector.

"As an unemployed graduate, it's very discouraging because now you think will I ever be employed as a teacher? KZN has many vacant posts, but they cannot hire because the department doesn't have funds to pay the teachers, we now rely on the Gauteng database for unemployed teachers and other provinces nakhona (even then) it's not guaranteed.

"It's difficult, sometimes I wish I did not choose this profession because I did not think that it will take so long to get a job, you even struggle to score those temporal or substitute posts, they mostly advertise SGB posts which pays as little as R5000 or less," Ntuli said.

mthobisi.nozulela@iol.co.za

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