Search Page

The Eastern Cape Education Department has concluded its investigation into 'ghost pupils', but it still faces the 'ghost teachers' scandal. The wife of a former African National Congress (ANC) Chief Whip faces 16 counts of fraud and 10 counts of money laundering after allegedly pocketing more than R1 million by processing several fake applications for Grade R teaching posts.

The basic education ministerial task team report into the “jobs for cash” scandal has found that corruption is endemic in the education system and the first step in stopping this is to end cadre deployment. The task team’s report, into allegations that some members of South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu) have been selling posts for money, has also raised issues within the appointment process in the sector. As a result, the department says it will establish interviewing and appointment panels that would be vetted regularly, as well as reviewing the appointment system as a whole.

The Basic Education Minister briefed media on the interim report submitted by a ministerial task team set up to probe allegations of selling of teachers’ posts. The Minister said the report confirmed there is corruption and undue influence in the appointment of teachers and school principals, there are weaknesses in the system and that the authority of the state and powers of certain stakeholders in the appointment process would need to be reviewed.

The SA Democratic Teachers Union came out strongly against the basic education department on Sunday, accusing senior officials of being involved in a jobs-for-cash syndicate and claiming that high ranking officials in the education department had either accepted bribes or used undue influence to appoint teachers and principals. But this allegation was rejected by an education spokesperson.

The Basic Education Minister delivered a statement regarding the investigation into allegations of selling of posts for teachers following the release of preliminary report by her Task Team on the work done thus far. According to the minister the report, though not yet complete, has uncovered some very concerning tendencies that are being perpetuated in the appointment of teachers and principals. The full details of the report will be released at a later stage.

The SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) was fingered as the main culprit in a damning report into the alleged selling of teachers' posts released on Thursday. According to a report by the Basic Education Minister’s task team, government systems have allowed an exploitation of the system, which compromised proper appointments of critical educator posts.

A task team has begun investigating the alleged selling of teacher posts, the basic education department said on Sunday. The team has started to do its work and several interviews have been held with union's department spokesperson.