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A reply to a DA parliamentary question received from Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga reveals that 65% of prospective teachers whose studies were funded through the government’s Funza Lushaka bursary scheme end up not being placed by the department within three months.

Non-placement within three months has serious consequences as it releases the bursars from their contracts. In terms of the contracts, graduates that benefit from the finances for studying would have to be placed and teach at schools for a period of four years. Poor planning has seen this resource fundamentally under-utilised with teachers not being placed within time resulting in the waste of precious education resources and tax payer money.

The poor management of this scheme is evidenced by its dismal placement rates. Over the last three years, placement rates within three months were as follows:

• 2009 cohort: 31% placed
• 2010 cohort: 41% placed
• 2011 cohort: 35% placed

The Presidency in a response to the DA’s view that President Zuma is not fit to serve on a United Nations Education Panel cited its target of producing more than 40 000 teachers by 2014 as evidence of its “many achievements” in education. The poor management of programmes aimed at improving teacher capacity is, however, putting this target at risk.

The Departments poor planning extends further with the Auditor-General finding that the DBE underspent on teachers and education human resources by R43 million in the recent 2011/2012 Annual Report of the Department of Basic Education (DBE).

The DBE also gave evidence of the lack of a holistic recruitment and retention strategy in a Portfolio Committee briefing last month.

The DBE is currently facing court action to compel the department to fill 64 752 teacher vacancies in the Eastern Cape. On the 3rd of August, the Eastern Cape High Court in Grahamstown ordered the DBE, who took over the running of the provincial department in March 2011, to pay outstanding salaries by 17 August and to fill vacancies by appointing teachers on a temporary basis by 02 September.

The Department missed both of these deadlines.

Government needs to stop confusing the setting of educational targets with actual achievement.

I will use every appropriate parliamentary mechanism available to push government to fulfil its education mandate by providing sufficient qualified teachers to all our learners.

Broken promises do not serve our learners. A sufficient supply of qualified, committed teachers is essential for our education system to improve and fulfil the promise of a quality education for all.