EDUCATION: Eastern Cape teacher assistants left without income after contract ends and funding hiatus

Nkululeko Diba wakes up every morning not knowing what to do with himself.For six months last year the 32-year-old from eBhofolo had a purpose. He arrived at Thubalethu High School in KwaMaqoma, Fort Beaufort, to support English teaching. He earned R4,000 a month and, for the first time in years, had an answer when someone asked what he did.“It’s very hard to wake up in the morning not knowing what to do with yourself because now I have no direction,” said Diba, who holds a health and safety certificate but has no matric. He had been unemployed for years before the Basic Education Employment Initiative (BEEI) gave him a job entry in June 2025. He has been applying for any type of work since his contract ended in November.Diba is one of 28,709 young people deployed as education assistants in Eastern Cape public schools during Phase 5 of the BEEI – the government’s largest youth employment programme, which has placed about 1.4 million people in roughly 23,000 schools nationally since its launch in 2020, at a total cost of R31.3-billion according to a report by the Presidential Employment Stimulus (PES). Its sixth phase is on hold amid a funding gap and pending the outcome of a pitch to National Treasury.A bureaucratic breakdownAccording to the Eastern Cape Department of Education, it spent R574.18-million on stipends during Phase 5, deploying assistants across 4,754 public schools, with funding from the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), which provided R4-billion nationally after Treasury – which had backed the programme’s first four phases – stepped back.Nkululeko Diba from eBhofolo in the Eastern Cape was laid off from his job as a teacher assistant at Thubalethu High School in eBhofolo. (Photo: Supplied) When planners began designing Phase 6, the UIF declined to release further money until the completion of an independent audit of Phase 5. In the meantime, the 2026 national Budget dealt a sharper blow: the BEEI allocation was cut from R5.6-billion to R340-million – enough to cover administration only, with no funded posts for young people. Against a backdrop of record application numbers and mounting evidence of the programme’s classroom impact, the money has effectively run out.PES programme lead, Dr Kate Philip, did not mince her words. “The future is uncertain,” she said. There is currently no firm fiscal allocation for the initiative – only a small amount set aside – leaving it in institutional limbo.Part of the problem, Philip explained, lies in the architecture of the funding itself. Money from the UIF cannot flow directly to the Department of Basic Education (DBE) or to provinces. Instead, programme ownership sits with the Sector Education and Training Authority, which must coordinate plans with the DBE before anything can move – a layered, bureaucratic funding chain. Even if the political will exists, she made it clear that the money simply cannot be redirected in time for the current financial year. “That window,” she said, “has already closed.”South Africa’s unemployment rate stood at 33.6% in Quarter 2 of 2026. The Eastern Cape records the second-highest expanded unemployment rate in the country at 54.1%, according to Stats SA – making the loss of 28,709 positions a significant setback.What the programme was built to doThe BEEI was never designed as a permanent employment scheme. Assistants were hired on fixed-term contracts – Phase 5 ran between five and six months – and placed into one of six categories: curriculum support, reading champions, e-cadre (ICT), care and support, handypersons, and sport and enrichment. Minimum requirements were modest: for curriculum and reading champion roles, a matric pass with English was the floor, though the programme gave explicit priority to applicants holding NQF Level 6 or 7 qualifications, or those studying towards a part-time teaching degree.In the Eastern Cape, more than 15,000 of the 28,709 Phase 5 positions focused directly on curriculum and pupil support – placing young people at the heart of overstretched classroom instruction.Zanele Nobadula worked as a curriculum assistant at Aaron Gqadu Primary School from June to August 2025, drawing on her Advanced Diploma in TVET Studies and previous experience through the YearBeyond Programme. “Many learners struggled to read for meaning,” she said. “That showed me that there was still a lot of work that needed to be done. As a teacher assistant, I also faced my own challenges – but those experiences taught me the importance of patience, consistency and resilience. What matters is continuing to show up, doing your best and making a positive contribution wherever you can.”A shifting policy, and the illusion of continuityLilly Estelle Schutte (26) joined the initiative in 2023 at Krazukile Senior Secondary School in Centane, working from May to September before returning to unemployment. For Phase 5, she was placed at JF Mtshiki Primary School in Butterworth, until her contract ended in November 2025.“After the contract ended… I was left with no job and no income, but I have not given up. I still want a qualification as a teacher,” Schutte said. To generate income in the meantime, she has started a charcoal manufacturing business using skills she gained from a Department of Education youth entrepreneurship course.Schutte’s experience illustrates an inconsistent policy. Phase 2 assistants were rolled directly into Phase 3 without reapplying, giving many the impression of continuity. Phase 4 reversed this, barring all previous participants to spread opportunity more widely. Phase 5 reversed it again, permitting former assistants to return.Tlhokomelo Mapena (26), from Maluti, holds a matric and had been unemployed for two years before being placed by the BEEI at Moliko Junior Primary School. When his contract ended in November 2025 there was no real expectation that it would be renewed. “It did take a bit of a toll on me, but I decided to stay positive and focus on other things that are going to help me survive,” Mapena said. He too is starting a charcoal manufacturing business and, like Diba, has been applying for any other available employment.Tlhokomelo Mapena from Maluti in the Eastern Cape worked at Moliko Junior Primary School from June to November 2025. When his contract ended, he too found himself at home without an income. (Photo: Supplied) What the evidence showsThe impact in classrooms is well documented. A review by the Binding Constraints Lab (BCL), presented at the Eastern Cape Education Partnerships Conference in East London in August 2026, found that 96% of school management team members surveyed nationally reported that assistants significantly reduced teachers’ workloads. A randomised controlled trial in Limpopo found that pupils in schools with assistants gained the equivalent of 1.25 additional years of learning in literacy and numeracy.At the conference, Dr Naledi Mbude-Mehana, the deputy director-general for transformation and languages in the National Department of Basic Education, presented assessment results showing improvements across every grade and subject in the foundation phase between term 2 of 2025 and term 2 of 2026, with Grade 4 mathematics recording the largest gain. The BCL proposed to the conference a Phase 6 model focused on 80,000 foundation phase assistants targeting Grade R to Grade 3 reading and numeracy, with pupil-level assessments for the first time.Principals across Makhanda, speaking anonymously, said the loss was already being felt. “We have a shortage of teachers at our school, and the teacher assistants were so valuable for us,” said one. “The learners benefited greatly from having them in the school.”Future in limboThe Eastern Cape Department of Education has not disclosed how many of its 28,709 Phase 5 assistants have since moved into permanent employment.For Diba, Nobadula, Schutte and thousands of others, the door has been opened, but their access route is narrow. These teacher assistants are at home without an income – and the schools that once depended on them are waiting, too.The department had not responded to further questions by the time of publication. DMThis story was produced by The Education Desk, an independent non-profit newsroom.Note: EdDesk is supported by the Binding Constraints Lab, which assists multiple learning initiatives, including the BEEI programme.