The prediction that South Africa will be facing a shortage of educators in our schools within the next ten years has been a topic of discussion for months now, with many concerned and wondering what the plan of action will be to combat this.
The large number of retiring educators will impact the number of teachers remaining in South African schools, as well as have an impact on the already overcrowded classrooms.
Department of Basic Education
However, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) has gone against the prediction, stating that the reports claiming the oncoming teacher shortage is "puzzling".
DBE Spokesperson, Elijah Mhlanga, says that ten years ago, the same thing was being said about the retirement of teachers and subsequent shortage that would follow, and yet it didn't come true.
"We are exactly at that point, that ten years that was predicted. Instead of us seeing that crisis, we are seeing another prediction going another ten years into the future. So I'm asking myself, 'what is really going on here and what are they [the experts] looking at?', because the data that we [the DBE] have does show and confirm that we actually have an oversupply of teachers," said Mhlanga.
Roughly half of the teachers in South Africa are expected to be of retiring age, which could result in the sector losing half of its labour force over the next decade according to School-Days CEO, Paul Esterhuizen, who warned of the shortage of teachers in years to come.
Therefore, new and younger teachers will have to fill the gap left by those that have retired. The problem, according to experts, is that there are not enough of these new teachers to step in.
To account for the loss of teachers due to the approaching retirement age, current new appointments of teachers in public schools may have to almost double. This means South African universities will have to double their current output of qualified teachers to cope, and hopefully combat, the loss.
Teacher Shortage
The DBE's Spokesperson added that the "oversupply of teachers" will continue to exist, based on the trends the DBE has read; therefore the Department is not anticipating the shortage that has been predicted and discussed multiple times.
Mhlanga has stated that although the Department’s budget is not enough to hire more teachers, there are more education graduates compared to teachers that are currently retiring.
“The year that had the highest number of teachers leaving the system was 2019 when 19 100 teachers left. After that, the number dropped to 15 000 so even with that number of 19 000 you still have more teachers graduating than those that are leaving the system and that trend is continuing so we are seeing more teachers that are graduating and teachers that are leaving,” he explained.
Unemployed yet qualified educators have also gone against the reports of the looming teacher shortage, stating that there is no shortage of teachers, there just aren't enough teaching posts available, despite the DBE's insistence that there are plenty of posts available.
The Department has also revised the criteria for the Funza Lushaka bursary to increase the number of teachers that specialise in STEM subjects.
