Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube and Director-General Mathanzima Mweli have laid bare the scale of persistent weaknesses in financial management, procurement and accountability across South Africa’s basic education system.
The 2025/26 audit findings revealed billions in unresolved irregular expenditure and oversight shortcomings, despite some improvements, when presented to Parliament’s Basic Education Portfolio Committee during early October.
Here are the key findings:
1. The department’s overall outcomes ‘regressed’
All three national education bodies fell short of a clean audit, with the department of basic education (DBE), South African Council for Educators (SACE) and Umalusi (the public entity responsible for setting and maintaining national education standards) receiving unqualified audit opinions. The Auditor-General (AGSA) describes an unqualified audit as financial statements being accurate, but there may be issues with performance reporting or compliance. Umalusi lost its clean audit after submitting its annual financial statements late and failing to prevent irregular expenditure. The DBE and SACE’s outcomes were unchanged.
2. R96.2m in irregular expenditure was recorded
The national education portfolio recorded about R96.2m in irregular expenditure, up from R79.9m the year before, largely due to non-compliant procurement. Of the total, R75.8m related to prior-year infrastructure contracts and R13.3m to irregular procurement of Basic Education Employment Initiative training services and overpayments to unapproved training beneficiaries. The presentation separately records R6.3m incurred by Umalusi through budget overspending. Irregular expenditure is spending that did not comply with requirements, and does not automatically mean money was stolen.
3. More than R6bn in historical irregular expenditure remains unresolved
Over the years, the DBE and its two entities have racked up about R6.31bn in irregular spend. The closing balance not yet dealt with is R6.274 billion. Consequence management has been implemented for more than R4bn, and condonation requests have been submitted to National Treasury. Disciplinary processes for accumulated cases continue, mostly involving implementing agents.
4. Serious gaps found in the development of the textbook catalogue
The AG found no comprehensive framework regulating the national learning and teaching support material catalogue. It also found:
- scoring methods were not formally documented;
- there was no independent committee to adjudicate evaluations;
- publisher experience, capacity and capability were not specifically assessed;
- tax clearance and interest declarations were not assessed;
- bids were not published on the e-Tender portal;
- not all screeners declared their interests;
- the DBE did not report a procurement deviation to AGSA within 14 days, and acknowledged this.
The DBE said evaluations focused mainly on educational content and curriculum compliance. The AGSA said the gaps reduced transparency and assurance that catalogue decisions were consistent and accountable.
This overall finding comes amid heavy contestation during 2026 about the foundation phase (Grade 1-3) catalogue, though no specific phase breakdown was referenced in Parliament.
5. Auditors could not verify some Early Childhood Development figures
The AGSA could not determine if the DBE’s reported ECD achievements were correct, because the supporting schedules were inaccurate or incomplete. The DBE presentation stated that it conducted an audit on conditional grant and site visits at centres in the Eastern Cape and Gauteng Education Provinces. The presentation said “improvement noted for 66%, and 33% still to be addressed” but did not provide additional information.
The indicators were the number of children benefiting from ECD and the number of children accessing registered ECD programmes. AGSA said the DBE lacked a system of controls to ensure reported ECD achievements were backed by verifiable evidence. The finding concerns the reliability of the reporting and does not establish that children were not receiving services.
6. SACE received a record 831 misconduct complaints
SACE called this the highest number in its history. Its summary listed 346 assault cases, 234 sexual misconduct cases against teachers and 101 educator-to-educator cases.SACE said the volume strained its disciplinary processes.
7. 17 educators struck off, but few sanctions were enforced
SACE reported 17 educators struck off and 556 cases finalised, including 384 backlog cases. It resolved 384 of a planned 600 rolled-over investigations. It attributed delays to postponed hearings, school holidays, difficulty locating witnesses and staff shortages. Only 1 of 17 finalised sanctions had been submitted to employers for enforcement after the appeal process, against a 100% target. Its Ethical Standards programme met two of five indicators (40%).
8. SACE missed five of its 24 performance targets
SACE achieved 19 of 24 indicators (79%), down from 81% in 2024/25. The misses were:
- three ethical standards indicators;
- Council and executive committee meetings (eight held against 13 planned, because the council had not been reconstituted, with its term ending in July 2025 and a new council in office from April 2026);
- ICT systems (three of 11 implemented, owing to delays in finalising requirements).
Its registration, professional development and research programmes met all targets.
9. Provincial departments still struggle with financial accountability
There were no clean provincial audits among the nine provinces. Seven departments received unqualified opinions with findings and two (Mpumalanga and North West) were qualified (financial statements have specific inaccuracies, or there’s insufficient evidence to confirm their accuracy). The accumulated balance of irregular expenditure across provinces reached R35.1bn in 2025/26, from R24.7bn the previous year. Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and North West account for about R27bn. Management cited investigations awaiting condonation, slow investigations due to capacity constraints, and lack of capacity and budget to investigate some cases.
10. School infrastructure remains a concern
The DBE’s audit committee reported that 60% of previous audit findings (covering the DBE and its implementing agents) had been resolved and 40% remained outstanding. Internal audits examined infrastructure projects managed by implementing agents, including follow-up on defects and poor workmanship. AGSA acknowledged improved accounting for infrastructure projects, with no material findings on procurement or consequence management relating to school infrastructure. It warned that fruitless and wasteful expenditure continues to arise from cancelled projects.
This story was produced by The Education Desk, a non-profit newsroom dedicated to addressing schooling challenges in South Africa
