This news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.
TimesLive reports that the New Zealand government indicated on 14 October that it was going to recruit 6,000 teachers from South Africa, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and Fiji to address its anticipated shortage.
New Zealand education minister Chris Hipkins said that Immigration NZ, working with the Education Ministry, directly emailed 6,000 overseas teachers who had registered an interest in working in that country to encourage them to take the next step. But, University of Witwatersrand education expert Mary Metcalfe expressed doubts that SA teachers would respond in a high enough number to impact the local education system. “It is often young people who seek these opportunities and these enrich their experience and ultimately benefit the profession here when they return,” she pointed out. Unisa education expert Elias Mathipha said SA had a shortage of 18,000 teachers and added: “The universities are not made for producing teachers for primary schools. They are far from the communities. We don’t even know what is happening in the classrooms.” Basic education department spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said there were currently 410,000 teachers at 25,000 schools in SA, teaching 12.9 million pupils. He said more teachers were staying in public education, while the supply of new teachers “almost tripled”, from 8,000 in 2012 to 23,800 in 2016.
- Read the full original of the report by Nico Gous at TimesLive
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