Education bosses must account for teacher’s 18-year paid holiday

Imagine being paid your full salary and benefits for 18 years without doing a single day’s work. Now imagine that happening in an education system desperate for teachers.

The extraordinary situation has been laid bare in a courtroom in KuGompo City, where 64-year-old Nontsikelelo Albertina Ngumbela testified that she has not taught a single class since 2007.

However, she has remained on the Eastern Cape education department’s payroll ever since.

The revelation emerged during a defamation case, in which Ngumbela is a defendant.

But the employment bombshell has overshadowed the original dispute.

Ngumbela explained that she had initially taught at the East London Technikon until it was merged with two other colleges to form the Buffalo City TVET College.

She said in 2007, teachers were offered the option of becoming employees of the TVET or remaining in the employ of the provincial education department.

She chose the government option.

We now have an education department that failed to notice for nearly two decades that one of its teachers was not teaching.

Ngumbela calls herself a “displaced teacher” and not a ghost employee.

The department is investigating how the arrangement came about, acknowledging that many officials who may have known what happened have since retired.

That is not good enough. Because while officials may have retired, the problem did not.

It is difficult to think of a more damning contrast.

The Eastern Cape has 5,730 vacant teaching posts, the highest number of any province, while nationally there are more than 27,000 vacant posts.

Schools are struggling to put teachers in front of pupils. There are children whose education is being compromised by staff shortages.

The department must conduct an audit of so-called displaced teachers and other employees whose positions changed over the years.

There are so many questions in this extraordinary case.

However, the department must first explain how this happened. Not eventually. Now.

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