Recipients of the Funza Lushaka Bursary are required to teach at a public school for the same number of years that they received the bursary.
Applications for the Funza Lushaka Bursary for 2023 are now open and will close in January 2023.
In 2021/2022, 76% of the Funza Lushaka graduates were eligible for placement at schools across the country and were placed against the bursary’s annual target of 84%.
The Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) Director-General, Hubert Mweli said that graduates funded by the bursary who were not placed at schools did have the choice to apply to for teaching posts outside of their bursary obligations after a certain period.
These graduates remain on a list which the department will check every year to try and place them at schools according to the bursary programme’s requirements.
The department’s Deputy-Director General: Teachers, Human Resources and Institutional Development, Paddy Padayachee said that those who were not placed were placed in the following year or whenever there were vacancies to fill at schools.
The Deputy Minister of the DBE, Reginah Mhaule said that it’s not true that only Funza Lushaka students received placements at schools while students funded by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) did not.
This is because schools appoint graduates based on their needs and priorities. The districts which recruit the graduates are not able to place them if they do not meet the needs of those specific districts.
