01/10/2025 - Fedsas
A dark year awaits public education in South Africa.
Public schools in five provinces do not yet know how many educator posts they will receive from the State in 2026 while there are serious shortcomings in provinces where schools did receive their post provisions.
“Public schools must receive their post provisions annually before or on 30 September for the next year. This is not a random date. In fact, a 2011 court order in FEDSAS’s favour described this as an ‘inflexible deadline’,” says Dr Jaco Deacon, CEO of FEDSAS (the Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools).
“There is a lot of uncertainty due to education officials’ inability to adhere to, and in some instances blatant contempt of statutory processes. Regulations determine that public schools should finalise their budgets for the next year before the end of the current school year. This is impossible if schools do not know how many posts are available.”
This latest development follows on a year in which the National Department of Basic Education was heavily criticised after it became apparent that thousands of posts were vacant. In nearly all nine provinces, compulsory payments to schools were either late or not paid in full.
“In April this year, FEDSAS took the HOD of the KwaZulu-Natal Education Department to court after the provincial department failed to communicate the 2025 post provisions on time. By the time the information was made available a couple of months into the school year, some schools were surprised to learn that they have lost posts,” says Deacon.
On 19 September this year, FEDSAS sent letters to all nine provincial education departments to remind them of the deadline and the regulations. In four provinces, Limpopo, North-West, Free State and the Western Cape, schools did receive their post provisions on time. Yet in several provinces, the required consultations with governing body associations did not even take place.
As if this is not enough, the implementation of the compulsory Grade R seems doomed to fail. “A FEDSAS survey points to a lack of provision for Grade R. When the President signed BELA into law with full implementation, he clearly did not have the correct information about the state of readiness in terms of Grade R. The system is simply not prepared, and the post provisioning process is proof.”
The systemic decay in public education has reached such a critical point that FEDSAS lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission against eight provincial education departments earlier this year. “The trajectory is moving in the wrong direction, and it appears that the Minister of Basic Education does not have the support of the nine provinces. In fact, it looks as if the Minister has lost control. Education officials ignore statutory processes and there are no consequences for officials, heads of education and MECs who violate the law.”
FEDSAS is making an urgently appeal to the Minister to take control and ensure that schools are informed of their posts for 2026 before the start of the school holiday on Friday (3 October 2025). “There should also be consequences for non-compliance. What we need now is a Minister who is willing to act in the best interests of the children of our country.”