The government cannot afford to hire enough substitute teachers to step in for the thousands of educators who have been given permission to stay at home on full pay because they are at risk of coronavirus complications, parliament heard on Tuesday.
The government has so far approved more than 20,000 of the 27,000 applications from older teachers and those with co-morbidities who had sought permission not to return to their schools when they reopen, according to basic education director-general Mathanzima Mweli. This represents just more than 5% of the 390,000 educators now employed in SA’s nearly 23,000 public schools.
Provincial education departments have a limited pool of substitute teachers on their payroll who typically stand in for teachers who are sick or on maternity leave. Hiring enough extra substitute teachers to cover for those who have been granted concessions to stay at home would add another R650m a month to the wage bill, said the department’s deputy director-general responsible for planning, information and assessment, Paddy Padayachee.
“That’s not been factored into the budgets because we did not anticipate Covid-19,” he said.
The public sector wage bill is under immense pressure and is the focus of a court case and intense negotiations with labour, after finance minister Tito Mboweni pencilled in major cuts and the state reneged on a deal for increases for public service employees.
About half the teachers who have been granted concessions so far are over the age of 60. More concessions are expected to be granted this week, Padayachee said.
These concessions are made in terms of Collective Agreement 1 of 2020, which makes provision for teachers under threat of Covid-19 risk factors to work from home during lockdown levels 2 and 3.
Older people, and those with co-morbidities such as diabetes and high blood pressure, are at a significantly greater risk of severe illness or death from coronavirus infection.
All schools were closed ahead of the national lockdown in March. They have been reopened in stages, with the last returning grades resuming classes this week.
Some educators who have been given concessions not to return to the classroom are able to teach remotely, but not all schools have the resources for them to do so.
“Some [provinces] are looking at teacher assistants which cost much less than we would pay for substitute posts, because the demand is beyond what we can afford,” Mweli told parliament’s portfolio committee on basic education.
His presentation to the committee showed that so far KwaZulu-Natal is the province with the largest number of teachers authorised to stay at home (4,475), followed by Eastern Cape (3,959), Mpumalanga (2,636), Gauteng (2,558) and Western Cape (2,308). These figures are not proportional to the size of the teaching corps in the various provinces.
Mweli said the department of public service & administration was working on a remote working policy framework for public servants, which will have implications for the current arrangements for vulnerable teachers.
Basic education minister Angie Motshekga has told parliament before that not all educators at risk would work from home, as some could be accommodated in the workplace, and that the nature of the work done from home would depend on their role and the available resources.
“The work could range from conducting classes remotely to basic level preparing lesson plans, all within the official job description of the educator,” she said in a written reply to parliamentary questions on July 17.
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