South Africa has lost more than 32,000 teachers in just the past five years. A pioneering fellowship is stepping in to address this with the robust mentorship, community and psychological support our educators desperately need.

Young educators enter the profession with a fierce desire to change lives, armed with pedagogical theory and a deep-seated passion for young people. But the reality of the modern South African classroom quickly becomes a relentless trial by fire.

According to parliamentary data revealed by Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube following a question from Build One South Africa (Bosa), South Africa has lost more than 32,000 teachers in just the past five years. That is an average of more than 6,000 educators leaving the classroom yearly. Of these departures, a staggering 30,992 were resignations driven by crushing workload pressures, career changes and emigration, while a further 1,245 educators were dismissed under the Employment of Educators Act.

Bosa highlighted that more than 50% of South Africa's primary school learners are now taught in overcrowded classes of more than 40 children. Yet, the department's own national recruitment database lists at least 12,700 qualified, unemployed educators actively seeking work while classrooms remain understaffed.

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This data mirrors the Teacher Preferences and Job Satisfaction in South Africa report by the Research on Socio-Economic Policy unit (Resep) at Stellenbosch University, which found that nearly half of all in-service teachers in the public system are...