29 000 teachers unregistered

2009-11-26 19:04

Johannesburg - Twenty-nine thousand teachers are still not registered with the South African Council for Educators, the organisation said on Thursday.

"The Council is embarking on a special project to register approximately 29 000 educators who are still unregistered," said SACE spokesperson Rej Brijraj in a statement.

He said at the moment 548 600 teachers were on SACE's register.

A total of 370 733 were public school teachers.

There were just under 5 000 foreign teachers registered and 30 000 teachers provisionally registered.

6 teachers struck off roll

Brijraj said the council had received 73 complaints about teachers since April this year. Sixty were found guilty of various misdemeanours and six teachers were struck off the roll.

The council held its first policy meeting on Wednesday following its inaugural meeting in August.

At the meeting, SACE announced that, together with the government education department, it had completed the planning for a continuing professional teacher development system.

SACE will manage the programme, overseeing a pilot project to roll out in 144 schools in 13 districts across the country.

The full programme will begin in 2011. Brijraj said that since April, 18 workshops involving 1 006 teachers were held dealing with how to maintain portfolios of their professional development.

- SAPA