W Cape teacher loses dismissal challenge over absenteeism and insubordination

An arbitration award handed down this week by an Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) panellist has upheld the dismissal of a teacher at a Western Cape school who had prolonged absences from duty after an assault by a pupil.

The award on Tuesday addressed a complex intersection of workplace trauma, chronic absenteeism and institutional safety obligations within the Western Cape Education Department (WCED).

The educator referred her dismissal to the ELRC for the arbitrator to decide whether it was substantively and procedurally fair and thereafter determine the appropriate remedy.

The former teacher also sought retrospective reinstatement, alternatively substitution of her dismissal with a lesser sanction.

The former teacher, who was permanently employed by the WECD since October 2024, was dismissed on May 21 this year after being found guilty of misconduct and insubordination.

She had faced a similar charge a few months earlier and received a final written warning for insubordination.

She was absent from October to December 2025 and 66 days in 2026.

In January this year, she was charged for misconduct and her pattern of absenteeism.

She argued that the department should have followed an incapacity process because her absences were linked to the psychological effects of an attack in 2024.

According to the award, she testified that a pupil pushed her against a classroom door and grabbed her. The pupil was removed from the school and never returned, but she said she continued to feel unsafe there.

The teacher testified that she had not received a written safety assurance or participated in a safety meeting that resolved her concerns.

She maintained that she would have been willing to return if appropriate safety measures had been implemented. She argued that the employer should have pursued an incapacity processes, not a sanction.

However, the school principal and circuit manager testified that the school was safety compliant. Management also argued that despite offering health and wellness referrals and counseling options, the teacher repeatedly refused cooperation, failed to follow proper notification protocols for absences and outright defied direct instructions from district leadership to return to work.

Arbitrator Gert van der Berg concluded that despite the traumatic context raised by the teacher, her defiance of direct return-to-work instructions, rejection of cost-free wellness support and breach of an active final written warning rendered the employment relationship irretrievably broken.

“In analysing the evidence presented before me, I find on a balance of probability that the witnesses of the (WECD) were reliable and credible when they testified.

“Their evidence convinces the commissioner that the applicant was aware of the rules, policy and consequences of continued absenteeism and disobeying of a lawful instruction to return to work on 6 November 2025,” the arbitrator said.