Gert Sibande TVET College has come under intense scrutiny after Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training uncovered that the institution employed 10 foreign nationals without first establishing whether suitably qualified South Africans were available to fill the positions.
The revelations emerged during the committee’s three-day oversight visit to Mpumalanga, where members questioned the college’s leadership about its recruitment practices and compliance with legislation governing the employment of foreign nationals.
The issue came into sharp focus when committee members were informed that eight of the 10 foreign nationals employed by the college were Zimbabwean lecturers.
ANC MP Yanga Govana questioned why the institution had recruited foreign lecturers when South Africa continues to face high unemployment, particularly among qualified young professionals.
“I will move to the issue of foreign teachers. We have 10 you have presented before us, and eight of them who are from Zimbabwe are lecturers. What special and scarce skills are they providing to the institution that was not found in South Africa?” Govana asked.
Acting Deputy Principal: Corporate Tumelo Mokubyane acknowledged that the eight Zimbabwean lecturers were employed around 2022 but conceded that they were not providing scarce skills.
“The eight were employed around 2022 and you are correct, they are not providing any scarce skill,” Mokubyane said.
The admission prompted further questions from Govana, who challenged the college to explain why foreign nationals had been given preference when qualified South Africans were available.
She questioned the logic of appointing foreign nationals to lecturer positions when South African universities have produced thousands of education graduates, many of whom remain unemployed.
The college was unable to provide a clear explanation.
Mokubyane told the committee that he could not explain why the foreign nationals had been appointed ahead of South Africans.
“I accept that there is no scarce or special skill that they were providing, but I do not have reasons why they were employed where I am seated now, ma’am,” he said.
Recruitment process under scrutiny
The revelations also placed the college’s human resources processes under the spotlight.
The college’s Head of Human Resources, Bongane Dlongolo, admitted that the institution had failed to establish whether suitably qualified South Africans were available before facilitating the appointment of a foreign national to the position of Assistant Director: Research.
Dlongolo conceded that the college had made an error by not searching for suitably qualified South Africans.
“We did not look for South Africans that are qualifying. That was the error on our side, chairperson,” he said.
Portfolio Committee Chairperson Tebogo Letsie expressed concern over the admission and questioned whether the college’s human resources department understood its legal obligations when recruiting foreign nationals.
Letsie referred officials to provisions of the Employment Services Act governing the employment of foreign nationals.
She highlighted the requirement for employers to ensure that foreign nationals have the necessary legal documentation and, where applicable, that there are no suitably qualified South Africans available to fill a vacancy before recruiting from outside the country.
The committee’s questioning therefore shifted from simply asking why the college employed foreign nationals to whether its recruitment procedures were properly followed.
Questions over accountability
The revelations have placed the college under pressure to account for decisions that, according to its own officials, were not based on scarce or specialised skills.
The committee is expected to scrutinise the circumstances surrounding the appointments, including who authorised them, what recruitment processes were followed and whether the required checks were conducted before the foreign nationals were employed.
The matter also raises broader questions about employment opportunities within South Africa’s public education institutions, particularly at a time when unemployment remains a major national challenge.
For the committee, the concern is not simply that foreign nationals were employed, but that the college appears to have acknowledged that it could not demonstrate why their skills were required or why suitably qualified South Africans could not fill the positions.
The oversight visit has consequently placed Gert Sibande TVET College’s human resources and recruitment systems firmly under the microscope, with the institution now facing questions over compliance, accountability and the rationale behind the appointments.
