{"id":881764,"date":"2026-11-01T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=881764"},"modified":"2026-10-30T15:57:01","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T13:57:01","slug":"one-group-of-skilled-south-africans-calling-it-quits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/education\/881764\/one-group-of-skilled-south-africans-calling-it-quits\/","title":{"rendered":"One group of skilled South Africans calling it quits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Teachers in South Africa are leaving the profession and retiring early due to burnout, excessive workloads, understaffing, and growing disrespect towards teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the feedback from Lorvica Matthews, chief negotiator for the National Professional Teachers\u2019 Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) and the Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana revealed in his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement that 27,450 public servants had applied for early retirement without pension penalties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of these, 8,763 applications came from the education sector, followed by approximately 5,150 from health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthews said teachers were facing increasingly difficult working conditions, with many expected to manage large classes, maintain discipline, complete administrative work, assess learners, and meet curriculum targets without adequate resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation is worse at understaffed schools, where teachers are required to take on responsibilities previously handled by additional staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthews said some schools could no longer afford teachers employed through school governing bodies (SGBs), leaving state-employed teachers to absorb the extra workload.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have schools at the point now where they are unable to afford the SGB teachers, which automatically means that the Department of Basic Education teachers must then carry their load as well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She added that disrespect from parents and learners was contributing to teachers feeling drained, with some struggling with mental health challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of this, the opportunity to retire early without financial penalties, alongside an additional cash incentive, had become attractive to educators who were already struggling with unsustainable working conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthews warned that the departure of experienced teachers could have serious consequences for the education system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs much as recruitment is essential, we must try to ensure that the skills that we have, with the professional, experienced teachers, are retained,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said experienced educators were particularly important in teaching foundational skills such as reading and addressing the individual needs of learners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we are going to be left with a gap because these teachers have left due to burnout and unsustainable working conditions,\u201d Matthews said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s not just teachers <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She also expressed concern about retaining younger teachers and said that some entered the profession only to discover that the work environment was unsustainable and then decided to pursue other careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthews said the problem extended beyond classroom teachers, with office-based staff and managers also leaving the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She warned that replacing departing employees would be difficult if provincial education departments lacked sufficient funds to advertise vacant positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a recent Education Labour Relations Council post-provisioning workshop, she said most provinces indicated that they lacked the funds to advertise posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe children won’t be going anywhere. The responsibilities won’t be going anywhere. It just means that it will be piled up onto the people who are left behind,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthews identified several areas requiring urgent attention, starting with a realistic teacher post-provisioning system and a recruitment plan to address understaffing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also called for faster action to address school infrastructure backlogs, including insufficient classrooms and the continued use of mobile classrooms that can become uncomfortable during extreme weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teachers also need better protection against violence, intimidation and abuse. She argued that school safety had become a growing concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthews called for clear and consistently enforced learner discipline policies, supported by parents and school communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She added that administrative requirements and workloads needed to be reviewed so teachers could spend more time teaching rather than completing paperwork and documenting classroom activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She argued that addressing these pressures was essential to improving working conditions, retaining experienced teachers and preventing further gaps in South Africa\u2019s education system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Teachers in South Africa are leaving the profession and retiring early due to burnout, excessive workloads, understaffing, and growing disrespect towards teachers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":860708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"failed","_sma_x_autopost_error":"Instagram publishing failed: Instagram returned HTTP 400: Media ID is not available","_sma_x_post_id":"2116849241771442251","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2256974088456323","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26526],"tags":[8694,25147,853],"class_list":["post-881764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-fedusa","tag-national-professional-teachers-organisation-of-south-africa-naptosa","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881764"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":881794,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881764\/revisions\/881794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}