Teachers’ early retirement puts working conditions under scrutiny - IOL

The approval of thousands of early retirement applications in the education sector has renewed calls for the government to examine teachers’ working conditions, with the South African Union of Teachers (SAOU) warning that replacing experienced educators will not resolve the pressures undermining retention.

National Treasury figures published in the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement show that education was the largest named sector in the table of approved applications under the government’s Early Retirement Programme (ERP).

While approval does not necessarily mean every applicant has left their post, SAOU executive officer Paul Sauer said the figures should prompt closer examination of the realities facing educators.

The union’s recent needs assessment identified high workloads, burnout and administrative burdens among respondents’ biggest challenges, alongside staff shortages, learner discipline problems and pressure on school leaders.

“The fact that 8 763 teacher applications under the Early Retirement Programme were approved is deeply concerning. We need to ask why so many teachers are choosing to leave the profession early, and what this tells us about the pressures they face. These figures do not provide all the answers, but they should prompt us to examine the realities in our schools seriously,” Sauer said.

He said retaining teachers required more than appointing new educators, calling for better working conditions and support.

For some educators, the decision to leave followed years of mounting pressure, with personal accounts illustrating the toll on their health, family lives and ability to focus on learners.

“I did not care how much I was going to get. I had nothing left to give,” said one former teacher who applied for early retirement.

By October 2025, she had decided not to return to school in January 2026 and submitted her application without knowing exactly what her retirement income would be.

“It felt as if I was just working to complete and submit a form on time. It was no longer about good teaching and making sure learners understood the work,” she said.

She described a 10-week programme that was expected to be completed in six weeks. Since leaving, she has felt more at peace, although her monthly income is lower than anticipated.

A former Northern Cape principal also described relief from the demands of school management.

“I’m much more relaxed. As a former principal, the pressure is much less,” the former principal said, adding that the biggest change was no longer dealing with “meetings, emails and circulars”.

Not all educators taking early retirement leave teaching altogether. One former Northern Cape teacher has moved to an independent school, where she says organisation and learner discipline are better.

Burnout specialist Sandra de Wet-du Toit said pressures often accumulated over time, leaving teachers with little opportunity to recover.

A survey she conducted using her 12 Stages of Burnout framework included 430 teachers nationwide. The highest-scoring stage was Stage 1, “The Need to Prove Yourself”.

“Teachers often volunteer for additional responsibilities and take on more work than they realistically have capacity for because they want to be dependable. They want to be the person colleagues can turn to, the one who always delivers and the one everyone knows they can count on,” she said.

Workloads, administrative demands, staff shortages, learner behaviour, demanding parents and inadequate institutional support were among the contributors to burnout.

The OECD’s TALIS 2024 findings provide further context. About 30% of lower secondary teachers in South Africa reported experiencing “a lot” of work-related stress, compared with an OECD average of 19%.

South African full-time lower secondary teachers spent an average of 7.1 hours a week marking and correcting work, against 4.6 hours across the OECD. They spent 4.9 hours on administrative tasks, compared with the OECD average of three hours.

The Department of Basic Education acknowledged concerns about workloads and workplace pressures but said there was no conclusive evidence directly linking these challenges to early retirement decisions.

“While the department recognises that these challenges may affect educator wellbeing and job satisfaction, there is currently no conclusive evidence establishing a direct link between these factors and educators’ decisions to take up the Early Retirement Package.”

Khala said the department was exploring ways to reduce administrative burdens, including gradually moving from manual processes to technology-enabled systems, and continued to promote access to psychosocial support programmes.