KZN DoE fills critical teacher posts, but challenges remain

DESPITE the recent appointment of over 1 500 teachers in KwaZulu-Natal, unions have highlighted that the ongoing shortages and budget constraints that threatened the education sector, had left many qualified teachers unemployed.

Last week, the MEC for Education in KZN, Sipho Hlomuka, announced that the Department of Education (DOE) had filled critical vacancies in mathematics, maths literacy, physical and life sciences, and technical subjects. 

Hlomuka said 1 530 Post Level 1 critical teacher posts had been filled between January and April 2025.

"These posts had become vacant as a result of attrition, retirement, promotions and resignations. Most of these posts became vacant in critical subjects like mathematics, mathematics Literacy, physical sciences, life sciences, technical subjects and other new subjects. The filling of these posts aimed at ensuring that there are no classes without a teacher.

“This is a significant milestone for the department, as it would enable us to improve the teacher-to-learner ratio, enhance teaching and learning, and ultimately improve pupil outcomes,” Hlomuka added.

However, teacher unions have argued that there were still “too big of a gap” in the number of teacher posts filled, compared to the number of unemployed teachers in the province.

Muzi Mahlambi, spokesperson for the KZN DoE, said: “Every year, the number of pupils increases, but the department is unable to increase the basket of teachers due to the budget cuts. We are merely only able to replace not to increase

“The annual budget cuts started in the 2021/22 financial year. The unfunded wage agreements make it worse. Contrary to the claim that we can't afford to pay our teachers, they were paid their normal salaries and the wage increases as agreed despite it being unfunded.”

He said this rendered the department unable to do other programmes because 96% of the budget allocation goes to the compensation of employees.

National Teachers Association (Natu) general secretary, Doctor Ngema said the number of unemployed teachers remained in the thousands, making the number of posts filled this year seem like a “drop in the ocean.”

“There are thousands of young people who are unemployed but hold professional teaching qualifications. Some have been looking for jobs for more than 10 years. The DOE reported that when they released the post level 1 bulletin last year, one post in a school in the Umlazi district attracted more than 400 applications. So one can imagine the anxiety that unemployed teachers are experiencing. It is really hard to find teaching jobs now-a-days,” Ngema added.

He said teachers were confronted with a myriad of challenges in schools.

“These range from overcrowded classrooms where a teacher has to manage a class in excess of 60 pupils in one classroom. Teaching and learning become almost ineffective in this situation. Violence in our schools also remains a great concern for teachers and pupils.

“We have situations where our schools do not have teachers for certain subjects. Subjects such as mathematics and science are often not taught because the department struggles to attract teachers for these subjects,” he added.

He said while Natu acknowledged the filling of the critical posts, the DoE needed to fill all posts. 

“Prioritising Grade 12 teacher posts only, will not help. In our view all teacher posts are critical and should be filled expeditiously. No pupil should be at school without a teacher. This creates unnecessary learning gaps in our system. We thus urge the department to fill all primary school teaching positions.

“The provincial education department has been hit hard by budget cuts over the past few years.  The situation is dire in the KZN provincial education sector. The entity is in the intensive care unit,” Ngema said.

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