The Eastern Cape Department of Education MEC, Fundile Gade has learnt with shock innuendos allegedly spread by one of the departmental employees, Ms Mantombi Mliswa about the irregular payment of Grade R educators by the provincial administration of the department ignoring set norms and standards by the Department of Public Service and Administration.

The euphemism created by these crude allegations in a social media account (Facebook account) doesn’t only tarnish the image of the department, rather it create an impression of pay parity amongst these employees while that is not the case.

As part of setting the record straight, the scriber dismally failed to mention that, the Eastern Cape Education department took a moral and administrative stance to increased monthly stipend of all Grade R practitioners to R10K per monthly with effect from April 2021.

Additionally, it should be noted that, nationally, all Grade R practitioners are appointed abnormally and they received stipends not salaries, since those emanate from a grant provided by the national department.  Furthermore, the sector in general is not formalized/regularised, thus each province pays them differently.

According to my understanding and knowledge as someone who sits in HEDCOM where policies of the sector are made and adopted, as this is a senior decision structure comprised of all provincial Members of the Executive Councils and Heads of Departments, surely if the Gauteng department had advanced better than our provinces, those best practices would be shared in that platform. As a caring province we would get into talks with the department to share with us those best practices.

Unfortunately, the scriber once again made another innuendo distorting that the province (Gauteng) had paid its Grade R practitioners Covid-19 allowance, which is not true at all.  The danger allowance as mentioned by Ms Mlisa/Romani does not apply to teachers at all.

The province may have faltered on many things, but this is where we believe we have made progress and still seek better models to continuously improve the conditions of services for all our employees including Grade R practitioners.  As a result, the EC province has paid for the studies of all Grade R practitioners. Studies.

Grade R practitioners are not employed as per the Public Service nor the Educator’s Act, both legislations do not covered them in terms of the scope. Despite that, the ECDoE is the first to have Post Provisioning Norms (PPN) for Grade R professionally qualified teacher on post level 1 and Ms Mlisa/Romani was in the first group appointed once she obtained Diploma in Gr R Teaching.

As we speak she is appointed as Post Level one teacher with all teacher benefits and still attending Rhodes University paid for by the same department he is criticising. There are only two provinces nationally that offer PPN to professionally qualified Gr R teachers, that's Eastern Cape and Gauteng.

As im writing this article providing clarity to the innuendos she and others are doing second year in B.Ed in Foundation Phase with a bursary . Even the Diploma she obtained for her to be appointed as the Grade R educator was paid for by the ECDoE.

Anyone who is not professionally qualified receives a stipend in all the provinces, this follows the adoption and gazetting of the Revised Policy on the Minimum Requirement for Teacher Education Qualification commonly known as MRTeq in 2018 by Minister Ndzimande which stipulates that the minimum requirements for Grade R Teaching should be a Diploma in Grade R Teaching. 

Lastly, the department will continue to strive to better lives of people through its programs that are tailored towards prioritising “teaching” as a career while driven by government policy positions.  Therefore we urge all employees of the department to respect that.

Issued by: ECDoE Communications for more information please contact the department spokesperson Mr. Mali Mtima 084 230 1976/ MEC spokesperson Ms Vuyiseka Mboxela 071 713 2222