News24 reports that the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) education department says it is making significant strides in staffing its schools as well as managing vacancies.

This was advised by Education MEC Sipho Hlomuka in outlining the 2024/25 budget on Tuesday. According to Hlomuka, a total of 90,057 teaching posts had been approved, with 86,737 posts designated for public schools through Post Provisioning Norms (PPN) certificates (used to determine the ratio of pupils per teacher in the classroom). He said this initiative aimed to achieve a favourable ratio of one teacher for every 31 pupils. Additionally, 2,020 posts have been reserved for substitute educators to cover absences due to illness or maternity leave. Hlomuka reported that, between January and June this year, the department filled more than 1,700 post level 1 educator vacancies, using the provincial database of unemployed qualified individuals. "To ensure more transparency in our recruitment processes, we have taken a decision to advertise vacant post level one educator posts. Processes are at an advanced stage in this regard and an advert will soon be released publicly to enable qualified unemployed educators to apply," said Hlomuka. In April, then basic education minister Angie Motshekga revealed that KZN had more than 7,044 teacher vacancies, namely the highest in the country. In May, more than a hundred KZN teachers staged a sit-in outside the education department's head offices, demanding to be permanently employed. The group, which calls itself the KZN United Unemployed Educators and which has more than 2,000 members, said they were aware there were available vacancies in many schools across the province, but believed the department was dragging its feet.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Sakhiseni Nxumalo at News24

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