No doubt you have heard of ghost names on payrolls, especially in the public service – non-existent workers in whose names public officials draw monthly salaries running into millions of state funds.
Now a variant has emerged in the basic education schools in KwaZulu Natal Province of South Africa – ghost pupils. 200,000 of them have been identified in just one of 12 districts in the province, leading to warnings from top education officials of principals could be charged with fraud.
Education MEC Peggy Nkonyeni said it was “criminal” that numbers were being inflated, adding that a full probe had begun after a preliminary investigation revealed widespread deception.
She said the “scam” had cast doubt over the authenticity of the province’s total pupil tally – 2.6 million – and warned principals that she was on to them.
“You will be very embarrassed because we are going to name you and shame you,” the MEC told a gathering of principals in Durban.
Nkonyeni said deploying more teachers “because of high pupil enrolments has dire consequences for the provincial Treasury. Apart from additional teachers, schools are given funds for things such as pupil support material and feeding schemes based on enrolments.”
Investigations by the national Department of Basic Education and the province are continuing in the uThungulu District, which includes Richards Bay and Eshowe.
Preliminary figures show about 200 000 cases of pupil inflation, and the MEC said the investigation would now be expanded to the other 11 districts.
Speaking at the launch in Durban of a programme that uses technological tools to enhance education in the classrooms, Nkonyeni said principals were inflating numbers to get a bigger pool of teachers.
“We need to find out if we really have 2.6 million learners in the province, because maybe we are getting the wrong portion (of funds) from Treasury. We need to get what we deserve.”
The bulk of the R39bn budget for education in KZN goes towards teacher salaries.
“Principals, we are aware some of you are inflating the learner numbers… that is fraud. We have taken a decision that should you be caught, we are going to charge you, because that means you are getting money that you do not deserve,” the MEC said.
Tim Gordon, chief executive of the Governing Body Foundation, described the inflating as “massive fraud” and said principals also benefited financially because their salaries were determined by the number of teachers and pupils.
“We will support action against principals who are doing this, because there are huge implications – the annual subsidy of the school is determined by the number of learners, the teachers as well, and the salary of the principal,” he said.
Vee Gani, the KZN Parents Association’s South Durban chairman, said the State should prosecute principals and the courts should hand down heavy fines because they were “disadvantaging schools which had real problems, by stealing from the government.”
However, Professor Labby Ramrathan, an education expert at UKZN, said the “blame game” in education needed to stop. The issue was complex and that technology and ID numbers could be used to authenticate at which school a pupil was based.
Spokesman for the National Teachers Union, Allen Thompson, blamed officials who were hired to monitor enrolment. “There are people that get paid big money to verify these things,” he said.
“There are officials who supervise two people. They should be going to schools and checking enrolment continuously. If (the number of) children decrease, they must find out what is the cause. We are saying this investigation must not be used to punish principals – use the investigation to find out how effective the system is.”
The KZN chief executive of the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA, Anthony Pierce, said that if found guilty of misconduct, principals could be dismissed. “We can’t have criminals in the system.”
Erica Hayes-Hill, head of the KZN Principals’ Association, said the department was conducting spot checks and had done so last week before schools closed. She was not aware of an investigation, but said they would support one.
Mbuyiseni Mathonsi, provincial secretary for the SA Democratic Teachers Union, said they would wait for the investigation to be concluded before commenting.