Every day‚ tens of thousands of school children are being taught by teachers who aren’t qualified to do the job. The result is that pupils are "not receiving the quality of teaching they’re supposed to be getting"‚ the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) admits. With mathematics and the sciences being the subjects most affected‚ education authorities say the solution to the problem might have to come from beyond SA’s borders. Responding to a parliamentary question by the DA‚ the national education department recently admitted that 5‚139 teachers — the vast majority of which are in rural KwaZulu-Natal‚ which stands at the heart of the problem — are either unqualified or under-qualified. While this was an improvement from 2014 (6‚719 teachers) and 2015 (6‚030 teachers)‚ it is still a worrying situation. There are‚ according to a 2016 statistical study released by the education department‚ about 435‚000 teachers across the country. In the response to the DA‚ the department...
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