The Eastern Cape education department has been outsourcing the after-hour teaching of almost all grade 12 subjects to private companies at a cost of hundreds of millions of rand — while there is an option to do it more cheaply in-house. 

Using a middleman to hire mostly government-employed teachers to tutor classes over Saturdays and holidays is wastage since the department could have paid these teachers directly, teachers’ union Naptosa said.

The cash-strapped education department paid Jenn Training and Consultancy R224.2m last year for “the provision of intensive support to pupils from underperforming schools”, according to a document titled Accruals and payables March 31 2021...