Thousands of teachers approved for early retirement amid workload concerns - IOL

The SAOU warns that burnout, heavy workloads and administrative pressure need urgent attention, while the Education Department says a direct link to early retirement has not been established.

Thousands of teachers have been approved for early retirement, raising fresh questions about the pressures facing educators and whether replacing experienced staff will address the challenges driving them out of classrooms.

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), with 8,763 teacher applications approved.

The South African Union of Teachers (SAOU) says the figures should prompt a closer examination of educators’ working conditions, including heavy workloads, burnout, administrative demands, staff shortages and learner discipline.

“These figures do not provide all the answers, but they should prompt us to examine the realities in our schools seriously,” said SAOU executive officer Paul Sauer.

“While these findings do not establish why individual teachers applied for early retirement, they show that working conditions in our schools need urgent attention.”

For some educators, the decision to leave came after years of mounting pressure and a growing sense that they could no longer meet the demands of the job.

“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 teaching, she said she had felt more at peace, although her monthly income was lower than anticipated.

Another former educator said leaving had removed a source of pressure that had affected both her health and family life.

“I am no longer part of a crippling workload that affected my health and my family,” she said.

A former principal in the Northern Cape also described feeling more relaxed after leaving school management, particularly without the demands of meetings, emails and circulars.

Not all teachers taking early retirement leave the profession altogether. One former Northern Cape teacher has moved to an independent school, where she said organisation and learner discipline were better.

Sauer said replacing teachers would not address the pressures affecting retention unless working conditions also improved.

“We cannot address the loss of teachers without tackling the challenges they face every day,” he said.

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

The findings point to concerns about the daily realities of teaching, although they do not establish why individual educators chose early retirement.

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

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

De Wet-du Toit said teachers could take on excessive responsibilities because they wanted to be dependable and meet expectations.

“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.

She said these qualities were often praised in education, but consistently taking on more than a person could sustain carried a personal cost.

Workloads, administrative demands, staff shortages, learner behaviour, demanding parents and inadequate institutional support were among the pressures she identified.

“Teaching does not end when the school bell rings. Teachers still have lessons to prepare, assessments to mark, administrative tasks to complete and planning to do. Many of these responsibilities continue into the evenings and weekends, leaving little time for rest, family, or personal needs,” she said.

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

“The Department acknowledges the concerns raised regarding the challenges experienced by educators, including increasing workloads and the pressures associated with the teaching environment,” said department spokesperson Terence Khala.

“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. It also continued to promote access to psychosocial support programmes.

The union’s concerns and former teachers’ accounts have renewed attention on the conditions educators face, but the available figures do not establish that workplace pressures alone explain the approved early retirement applications.