South Africa is facing a looming education crisis with a critical shortage of teachers and school principals, overcrowded classrooms in the public sector, and relatively poor educational outcomes.

Amid this reality, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) has announced plans to implement curriculum changes to better equip pupils for the future world of work, said Paul Esterhuizen, chief executive of School-Days, an incentive programme that helps parents and the public provide financial assistance to schools

However, sufficient teachers are essential to properly implement curriculum changes.

According to the most recent findings of the Teacher Demographic Dividend (TDD) project, a growing number of teachers have retired or are facing retirement by 2029.
“In 2013, 7 800 teachers retired compared with 12 500 in 2021. An estimated 17 300 teachers are due to retire in 2029. This will leave the education sector critically short of teachers in the years ahead.

“The shortage of teachers is — rather ironical — not because universities are not producing sufficient numbers of teachers but rather because provincial departments of basic education are not hiring enough graduates.

“In 2021, provinces only hired half of the 28 000 graduating teachers. To maintain the current number of teachers — let alone increase the number — the country will need to employ an additional 6 000 teachers,” said Esterhuizen.

Learner-teacher ratios

While the number of teachers is decreasing, the number of pupils each year is increasing.

Pupil-teacher ratios have increased from 27 to one to 30 to one and will increase even further if the DBE achieves its goal of motivating more pupils to stay in school until they receive a matric pass, he said.

Esterhuizen said teachers’ salaries, which are growing at a faster rate than the Department of Education’s budget, are holding provinces back from employing more teachers.

To address the many challenges facing the South African education system, we need to start thinking of innovative solutions or risk our learners being left behind on the global stage, he said.

Research on Socioeconomic Policy (Resep) researchers at the University of Stellenbosch are conducting a study to determine the impact that teacher retirements could have on the country’s education system.

They say that besides the retirements, an increase in learner enrolment and the need to reduce learner-educator ratios could also affect teacher production demand.