23 school principals to face charges of misconduct

Charges of misconduct could be brought against 23 Eastern Cape school principals for inflating their pupil numbers, a department spokesperson, said today.

"This has been an ongoing problem in our province," said Loyiso Pulumani. "What happens is that at the beginning of every year, we get the numbers of pupils in schools from the principals. We then verify them ourselves." This year, 23 high school and primary school principals were found to have inflated the number of pupils at their schools by 10 to 42%.

"It is a well-known fact that the department makes allocation of funding and teachers according to the number of pupils at school. So when schools lie about their figures, and we send learning material for that figure, it is a waste of resources as these would have been used somewhere else." The principals of schools with more pupils were also paid more, Pulumani said.

He said the practice of inflating figures was more prevalent in remote areas where, in the absence of a verification process, principals had been able to get away with it for a long time. He said a number of principals had been found to have inflated their numbers by less than 10%, but would not face disciplinary action. "This is because you find that indeed the school had a bigger number of pupils at the beginning of the year, but that (its enrolment) decreased due to some dropping out." - Sapa