These teachers must go'

SCHOOL BODIES: OVER 16 000 WITH CRIMINAL RECORDS STILL IN CLASSROOM

- Masoka Dube

The department of basic education is placing the lives of pupils and teachers in danger by allowing more than 16,000 criminals to continue teaching.

This is according to the National Association of School Governing Bodies (Nasgb) secretary-general Matakanye Matakanye, who said 16,097 teachers with criminal records were still employed, despite the issue being brought up earlier this year.

"We call on the minister of education and the South African Council for Educators (Sace) to immediately act because we cannot allow criminals to teach our children," said Matakanye.

"It is their responsibility to ensure the teachers conduct themselves professionally."

"The problem was discovered in March, but no action has been taken up to date."

Last year, about 3.6% of the 447,123 department of education employees had criminal records and some even failed to disclose it, according to the TPN Credit Bureau statistics.