Applications for the Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) Teaching Assistant programs open today.
The initiative originally formed part of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Employment Stimulus Programme, which created 100 000 general school assistant jobs and 200 000 education assistant opportunities.
Basic Education Department Spokesperson, Elijah Mhlanga says the first phase of the initiative went very well. He says that more than 800 000 applications were received by the DBE for the school assistant posts.
Mhlanga says that the initiative is not only about creating employment opportunities, but also about providing exposure and training to the applicants. He says the experience and training would have been used by the assistants to get further education opportunities.
The huge demand for positions has prompted the department to create an online system where applicants can apply. This is in order to prevent the risk of people going to schools with their CV’s and gathering in large numbers.
Mhlanga says that the lessons learned from the first phase of employment will be implemented to make the system more effective. Some provinces decided to use different systems for applications, which caused delays. He says that some schools did not pay assistants their full amount while others paid people on a pro-rata basis.
“We never had any previous experience of running something like this, some mistakes were bound to happen, but there was a long process of reviewing what went wrong and this time around we have fixed all of those things,” said Mhlanga.
He has also urged applicants to submit all the required documentation to ensure that errors do not occur on their side but rather on the system’s side if any errors do occur. Schools will still be responsible for paying the successful applicants.
“The system has been audited, the auditor general would take the system and they gave us recommendations that we’re going to apply now to make sure that the money goes into the province and right to the hands of the person who’s supposed to get it” concluded Mhlanga.
Applicants can apply at https://www.sayouth.mobi
Qualifying applicants must be between the ages of 18 and 35 currently, and should not be pursuing studies or receiving any form of government grants.