Learner safety in Gauteng schools is under growing threat as a fragmented and under-resourced vetting system leaves thousands of individuals working with children without proper background checks.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has raised alarm over what it describes as a systemic safeguarding failure, revealing that only 11% of the 86,367 employees in the Gauteng Department of Education have been cleared against national registers designed to screen those working with children.
DA Gauteng education spokesperson Michael Waters confirmed that he has written to seven national ministers, calling for urgent, coordinated intervention to fix what he says is a broken and inconsistent vetting system.
The ministers include those responsible for Justice and Constitutional Development, Social Development, Basic Education, Health, Police, Sport, Arts and Culture, and Public Service and Administration departments that collectively oversee the National Register for Sex Offenders, the National Child Protection Register, and sectors employing individuals who work directly with children.
Waters said the failure to coordinate these departments has created dangerous gaps in the system, allowing individuals to move between sectors without proper vetting.
“We will never achieve 100% vetting if departments are required to pay for this process, which will leave our children exposed and vulnerable to sexual predators.”
The concern comes amid mounting evidence of backlogs and inefficiencies in the vetting process. Of the more than 28,000 applications submitted from district offices, thousands remain pending, while others have been rejected or delayed due to administrative constraints.
This means that a significant number of individuals are currently working in schools without confirmed clearance.
In a direct response to Waters’ urgent call for reform, Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has conceded that South Africa’s child-safeguarding system faces serious weaknesses, warning that protecting learners is not only a constitutional duty but a moral imperative that demands immediate, coordinated action.
“Protecting learners is a constitutional and moral imperative, and I agree that the State must work with urgency and seriousness to strengthen safeguarding measures across all sectors that serve children.”
Gwarube said that while progress has been made within the schooling sector, major weaknesses remain, particularly in the vetting process linked to the National Register for Sex Offenders.
“The process remains largely manual and paper-based, and delays have been compounded by capacity constraints within the SAPS and the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development,” she added.
She explained that the system depends on multiple institutions including schools, provincial departments, police and justice creating a slow and complex chain that often leads to delays and repeated submissions.
Despite these challenges, the minister said steps have been taken to improve compliance, including issuing directives to provinces, training officials, and improving access to the National Child Protection Register.
At a provincial level, the Gauteng Department of Education has previously acknowledged challenges with vetting, citing funding constraints and capacity limitations as key barriers to achieving full compliance.
The department has indicated that it continues to work with national departments to address backlogs and improve the processing of vetting applications.
However, the DA maintains that these efforts are not enough.
Waters has called for the vetting process to be made free across all departments, arguing that financial constraints are a major barrier preventing full compliance.
He is also pushing for the establishment of an inter-ministerial task team, a centralised digital vetting system, and a standardised framework that ensures no individual is allowed to work with children without confirmed clearance.
The Star