About 309,000 teachers at public schools across the country have not been checked for their suitability to work with children, and schools have only seven months to do so, in accordance with a court agreement decided on 7 August.

The Department of Basic Education (DBE) and provincial education departments entered into a court-backed settlement agreement requiring them to vet all public school employees against Part B of the National Child Protection Register by 31 March 2027.

This follows a legal challenge brought by public interest law centre SECTION27 on behalf of the Teddy Bear Foundation, seeking to compel education and social development authorities to comply with their constitutional and statutory duties to protect children from sexual predators in schools.

The court challenge was sparked by the 2015 rape of a 12-year-old girl by a school caretaker. The perpetrator continued working at the school for seven years before being dismissed, and was only placed on the National Child Protection Register (NCPR) in 2023 after the organisations approached authorities and repeatedly followed up on the matter.

The settlement agreement was made by order of the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, where the organisations brought an application against 17 respondents, including the ministers of Basic Education, Social Development and Justice and Constitutional Development.

All nine provincial education MECs, the national police commissioner, the South African Council of Educators (SACE), and the Educators Labour Relations Council were also cited. Under the settlement, education authorities committed to vetting all staff and reporting any employees found guilty of misconduct rendering them unsuitable to work with children to the Department of Social Development (DSD) for inclusion on the register.

A vetting bottleneck

With less than eight months remaining before the 31 March 2027 deadline, official figures reveal a staggering administrative bottleneck across the basic education sector. According to data drawn from the National DSD NCPR dashboard, the verified national target population for these suitability checks stands at 464,669 employees. Yet, as of 5 August 2026, only 155,169 completed verifications have been recorded. This leaves more than 309,000 basic education employees, approximately 66.6% of the workforce, without a recorded NCPR verification.

A closer look at the provincial data reveals severe disparities in compliance. KwaZulu-Natal is facing the steepest uphill battle; out of a massive target of 99,703 employees, the province has completed only 3,939 verifications. The situation is similarly dire in Eastern Cape, which has cleared just 4,290 of its 59,539 staff members. Mpumalanga has completed 12,394 of its 37,151 required verifications, Limpopo has verified 7,146 out of 55,602 employees and North West has completed a mere 2,480 checks out of its 28,584 target. By contrast, Gauteng currently leads compliance efforts with 63,871 completed verifications out of 86,367, followed by Western Cape with 30,785 completed out of 45,708.

However, the DBE acknowledged that the national dashboard does not perfectly reflect all provincial efforts because of reporting delays. Free State recorded 24,834 completed verifications against a 40,094 target on the dashboard, but the province claims to have processed more, a discrepancy the DBE and DSD are attempting to verify. Similarly, Northern Cape recorded 5,430 verifications on the dashboard, but the provincial DSD has issued an additional 453 certificates not yet reflected in the national total.

Decentralised vetting responsibilities

The DBE stressed that the legal duty to carry out these checks does not sit with the national department itself.

âThe legal responsibility to ensure that persons who work with or have access to children are appropriately verified rests with the relevant employer or institution,â said Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarubeâs spokesperson, Lukhanyo Vangqa.

Under Section 126 of the Childrenâs Act, this accountability is decentralised.

âIn the case of a school, the principal must establish, before a person is allowed to work with or have access to children, whether that person appears in Part B of the NCPR,â Vangqa clarified. Furthermore, school governing bodies, as employers, are responsible for staff whom they employ directly or additionally, while provincial heads of department (HODs) are responsible for those employed by the provincial education authority.

The DBE also dismissed any notion that the delays are the result of red tape or lack of funding, explicitly distinguishing the NCPR process from the historically cumbersome National Register for Sex Offenders (NRSO). The NRSO, established under the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act and maintained by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, records people convicted of sexual offences against children and other vulnerable persons. The NCPR, established under the Childrenâs Act and managed by the DSD, records people found unsuitable to work with children because of abuse, neglect or exploitation, covering a broader range of conduct beyond sexual offences.

âThe NCPR verification process does not presently face the same systemic administrative constraints. The process does not incur a cost to [provincial education departments], and the DBE has worked with DSD to train provincial human resource officials to undertake the required verifications. Training remains available to address staff turnover and capacity requirements,â Vangqa said.

Rather than conducting the checks directly, the DBE noted that its role is strictly to âcoordinate implementation across the basic education sector, monitor provincial progress, provide support, facilitate engagement with DSD and escalate shortcomingsâ.

DBE tightens oversight on provincial progress

To address the lagging numbers, the DBE has officially placed Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and North West under enhanced monitoring until they demonstrate significant progress. These provinces will be subjected to targeted engagements, which are being arranged for August and September 2026, and are required to table implementation plans with strict monthly targets leading up to the deadline.

The department also outlined strict consequences for missing these new marks. Where a provincial education department fails to meet its agreed implementation milestones, the DBE will formally require the relevant HOD to set out and enforce corrective measures.

âContinued or material underperformance will be escalated through the Hedcom [Heads of Education Departments Committee] Subcommittee on Human Resource Matters, Hedcom and, where necessary, the Council of Education Ministers,â Vangqa said.

To strengthen accountability across the board, the DBE noted that HOD-level progress meetings will be convened monthly to track implementation and address emerging risks. This is in addition to quarterly meetings held with delegated provincial officials, with the next one scheduled for 17 September 2026.

âThe minister expects all parts of the basic education system to discharge their respective responsibilities so that the commitments contained in the settlement agreement are met. The safety of learners remains paramount. The minister expects the DBE to maintain close oversight of provincial progress, to require corrective action where necessary, and to ensure that emerging risks to meeting the 31 March 2027 deadline are addressed promptly,â Vangqa said. DM