The crisis in education: A call for accountability

THE recent stance from the education minister to agree to rectify and reassess the financial mismanagement and misappropriation of funds within the KwaZulu-Natal education sector has been long awaited.

- SHEETAL BHOOLA

THE misappropriation of funds in the Education Department has been ongoing for many years, says the writer. | File

The recent engagements held by politicians merely acknowledged the crisis and indicated that there is a shortfall of R7 billion within the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education. Yet, the province has been experiencing budget cuts, and a number of schools, especially within rural KwaZulu-Natal, have been earmarked to shut down because of the lack of resources to fund the operational costs and maintain the infrastructure.

The misappropriation of funds has been ongoing for many years now, and we can also note that the province could have been far more proactive in addressing this issue a long time ago. The employment of ghost teachers has been ongoing for more than a decade.

In the year 2010, there was an indication that there would be a verification process to identify and eliminate the employment of ghost teachers. Should we, as citizens, not question why they are still investigating this fraudulent activity even though an analytical verification process was put in place 15 years ago?

In 2016, there was a public media statement that declared that the education department in KwaZulu-Natal had eliminated all the ghost teachers that were identified. This is only one of many problems that the department has.