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The Education Labour Relations Council to complete the verification of learners and teachers by the end of October.
The Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) says it is confident the process of verifying the number of teachers and learners in schools across the country will be concluded by October.
The ELRC has been tasked with physically verifying educators and learners in schools across all nine provinces to address allegations of ghost workers in the education sector.
Teacher unions, the Basic Education Department and the nine provincial education departments have also called on the council to conduct a forensic investigation to probe allegations of the selling of posts.
The national projects have been commissioned as a matter of urgency. ELRC General Secretary Dr Nolusindiso Foca says they have met with the heads of all nine provincial departments and the Basic Education department.
The meeting was to appeal to officials to cooperate for the success of the project.
“So in essence, the work itself has not commenced. We are yet to start the work. However, the pressure is on for we are required to ensure that at least by the end of October, we have a report that should be considered by all the stakeholders in the sector. And that is Nosipho, done to ensure that we don’t experience any challenges as a result of the examinations that will be starting very soon, for our schools out there or for our learners.”
Meanwhile, Foca says on the forensic investigation, their teams have yet to put out the terms of reference.
“Our SCM team is yet to put out the terms of reference in the form of calling for proposals, so that they deal with SCM processes insofar as selecting the successful firm and all firms for forensic companies. Because we’re not sure in terms of to what is the extent of the work that is to be done, because that one is going to be driven purely by people coming forward with all sorts of reports and or information that they claim to be having, insofar as the selling of posts.”
Foca says during their one-on-one meeting with the KZN education department and provincial treasury, officials requested that the ELRC also consider Public Service Act employees in the verification process.
The council says while it is difficult to estimate the financial impact of ghost workers, the KZN Finance MEC had suggested that the national checks could save the fiscus close to R1 billion.
