Reply by Minister of Basic Education A Motshekga on questions posed in the National Assembly for written reply, July 10 2009

Question No. 488

Mr D Smiles to ask the Minister of Basic Education:

(1) How many (a) students qualified as teachers and (b) newly qualified teachers took up posts in schools in each of the past three academic years;
(2) How many grade one teachers are currently not qualified;
(3) How many (a) applications for admission to teacher training colleges were approved in each of the past three academic years and (b) of these applications were for the (i) mathematics, (ii) science, (iii) accounting and (iv) English language disciplines?

Reply:
1 (a) Total number of graduations of new teachers over the preceding four years for which data is available are shown in table 1 below.

Table 1: Number of new graduates entering teaching 2005 to 2008

2005
Basic education: 3 590
Post graduate certificate in education: 1 171
Total graduations: 4 761

2006
Basic education: 4 027
Post graduate certificate in education: 2 049
Total graduations: 6 076

2007
Basic education: 4 112
Post graduate certificate in education: 1 951
Total graduations: 6 063

2008
Basic education: 3 669
Post graduate certificate in education: 1 942
Total graduations: 5 611

Source: Higher Education Information Management System (HEMIS)
Note: Data for 2008 is preliminary, as final audited data for 2008 will only become available at the end of July 2009.

1 (b) 378 969 educators were employed in public schools either on a temporary or permanent basis as at the end of May 2009. Permanently employed educators constituted the majority (340 647). The number employed on a temporary basis stood at 38 322. Of this total, exactly 29 809 were appointed within the current year, with 25 775 appointed on a temporary basis and 4 034 on a permanent basis. The provincial breakdowns of 2009 appointments are shown in table 2 below

Table 2: Number of educators appointed in 2009, either temporarily or on a permanent basis, per province

2009 Appointments

Eastern Cape
Temporary: 2 459
Permanent: 663
Total: 3 122

Free State
Temporary: 1 757
Permanent: 150
Total: 1 907

Gauteng
Temporary: 3 326
Permanent: 1 488
Total: 4 814

KwaZulu-Natal
Temporary: 7 254
Permanent: 450
Total: 7 704

Limpopo
Temporary: 3 345
Permanent: 190
Total: 3 535

Mpumalanga
Temporary: 669
Permanent: 34
Total: 703

North West
Temporary: 1 819
Permanent: 50
Total: 1 869

Northern Cape
Temporary: 1 209
Permanent: 201
Total: 1 430

Western Cape
Temporary: 3 937
Permanent: 788
Total: 4 725

Source: PERSAL 200905

(2) Currently it is not possible to accurately provide this information on all Grade one teachers. Personnel salary system (PERSAL) is able to provide us with the REQV classification of teachers employed within public schools, but we are not able to filter out the Grade R educators at this stage. Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) forms, which are self reported, could be used to identify teachers teaching Grade 1 classes, however, they do not have accurate information about qualifications. The Department of Education is currently working on developing fields for the PERSAL system that would enable the drawing of reports on teachers' qualification type, teaching specialisations and experience. Once the system has been developed we will be in a position to draw accurate reports on teacher qualifications in relation to specific grades and subject taught.

While we cannot provide accurate data with respect to Grade 1 teachers, recent research into teacher qualifications carried out by the Human Science Research Council (HSRC) for the Department of Education does give some insight into the qualifications of foundation phase teachers in a statistically significant sample of schools nationally. 7 380 serving teachers in 580 public schools took part in the survey. There were 1 424 foundation phase teachers in the sample, and of these 93 percent were professionally qualified.

3 (a) The first time registrations into teaching at higher education institutions (HEIs) over the last four academic years are shown in Table 3.

Table 3: First time entrants at HEIs 2005 to 2008

2005
Basic education: 6 0289
Post graduate certificate in education: 3 860
Total first time registration: 9 049

2006
Basic education: 6 428
Post graduate certificate in education: 4 498
Total first time registration: 10 026

2007
Basic education: 7 958
Post graduate certificate in education: 4 421
Total first time registration: 12 379

2008
Basic education: 9 082
Post graduate certificate in education: 4 971
Total first time registration: 14 053

Source: Higher Education Information Management System (HEMIS). Note: Data for 2008 is preliminary. Audited enrolment data for 2008 will only be available at the end of July 2009.

3. (b) Currently it is not possible to provide figures of registrations disaggregated to the various disciplines. Higher education institutions do not report the names of qualifications in a consistent manner, for example some abbreviate the name, some use the Latin name and some also use the Afrikaans name. There are some cases where a specialisation may be included.

However, in most education qualifications the specific phase, learning area or subject specialisation is not recorded. From 2010 all public institutions will report on registrations and graduations using the new classification of educational subject matter categories. This will enable us to disaggregate the data form Higher Education Management Information Systems (HEMIS) in terms of the specialisations. Institutions will also be required to use the approved designator and qualifier for a qualification in terms of the HEQF, which will enable accurate reports on students registered for education qualifications to be generated.

Issued by: Department of Basic Education
10 July 2009

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter