By Akani Nkuna
Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has pledged to introduce measures aimed at reducing teachers’ administrative workloads, allowing them to focus more on their core mandate of teaching and ensuring their energy is not diverted to non-instructional duties.
Speaking at the 25th National Teaching Awards (NTA) on Thursday at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg, Gwarube told delegates — including some of the country’s top educators, government officials, and learners — that consultations were underway with the relevant council to reassign certain administrative tasks to teaching assistants and school administrative staff.
“Yet too often their time is consumed by non-instructional administrative tasks that divert energy away from teaching. Reducing non-instructional admin is not about lowering accountability – it is about respecting teachers as professionals and giving them back the time to teach our learners,” said Gwarube.
The minister emphasised the point of streamlining reporting and removing “low value” tasks.
She further advocated for thorough use of technological innovations to enable faster and smarter compliance that is not prone to disruptions.
Gwarube also underscored the importance of strengthening foundational education to foster the culture of literacy and numeracy, saying that the government has undertaken to expand the Early Childhood Development (ECD) programmes to accommodate children within a larger scale.
This comes after the Thrive by Five Index showed that children who were excluded from the programme “fell behind with their cognitive and physical development,” she said, and that the department has set itself an ambitious target to register 10 000 ECD centres by 31 December 2025.
“We are moving decisively on compulsory Grade R. Provinces are doing what they can with the resources available, while we work with the National Treasury to secure additional funding, to ensure that we roll out Grade R to all learners who require it,” Gwarube added.
During the awards ceremony, the Western Cape emerged as the top-performing province, claiming four Excellence Awards — in Special Needs Teaching, Life Skills (Grades 1–6), the My Teacher Ministerial Special Award, and Excellence in Teaching Physical Sciences.
Limpopo ranked second, taking home three awards, including Excellence in Teaching Mathematics, Excellence in Secondary School Teaching, and Excellence in Grade R Teaching.
The Eastern Cape was the only province without a top-spot winner, while KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Northern Cape, and Mpumalanga each secured one first-place position.
Motseki Mofokeng, long-serving teacher from Free State, was honoured with the Kader Asmal Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of more than three decades of dedicated service to education.
However, Mpumalanga’s Thulani Sibiya stood out as the overall winner, being crowned the 2025 National Best Teacher Award recipient.
Following his crowning, Sibiya told Inside Education that he was ecstatic to see his lifelong efforts finally recognised at a national level.
“I am so excited. And this is [belongs] to the whole province of Mpumalanga whom I am really proud to be their pride. This means so much to the province that they produced the best of the best educators in the whole country,” he said.
Sibiya expressed gratitude to his support structures, including Sophungane Secondary School, where he currently teaches, and Shinyukane Secondary School, where his teaching journey began.
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