Former employees of Educor, including City Varsity, remain in limbo after the company ignored a CCMA ruling to compensate 13 staff members for constructive dismissal with over R1.3 million by the end of January 2026. The decision followed years of salary delays and poor working conditions at the Cape Town campus. Legal representatives plan to enforce the award through court execution.
The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) issued a ruling on 9 January 2026, ordering Educor and its subsidiary City Varsity to pay more than R1.3 million to 13 former employees. Senior commissioner David Wilson determined that the staff had been constructively dismissed due to the employer's failure to pay salaries and provide adequate working conditions. This order required payment by the end of January 2026, but Educor has not complied as of February 2026.
Problems at Educor's Cape Town campus began in 2022 with irregular salary payments. Employees filed a grievance in August 2023 over delayed June and July wages. The situation deteriorated by late 2024, with August salaries three months late, September payments at only 50%, and October and November salaries entirely unpaid. Staff also faced a workplace lacking basic hygiene facilities, such as toilet paper, and the company deducted Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) contributions without remitting them to the Department of Employment and Labour.
Wilson stated in the award: "I have no hesitation in finding that the thirteen employees involved in this matter were constructively dismissed… The employers failed to take any reasonable steps to alleviate plight of the thirteen employees, and continued to expect the employees to continue to performing their duties despite not being paid."
Affected teachers shared their hardships. Moray Rhoda, a former employee, explained that he accessed his retirement funds to cope: "For months before we finally got to the stage of realising we were never going to get that money, people had to resign. People lost their houses, lost their cars, and I wiped out my entire retirement annuity to just survive."
An anonymous former teacher added: "Reconnecting with all the staff one year after having resigned, it’s very clear that people’s financial situations in a lot of ways have not recovered from that moment of having nearly three months of salary unpaid."
Advocate Vusi Masinga, representing the employees through the United Association of South Africa, indicated the next action: obtaining a writ of execution from the CCMA to involve the sheriff in recovering the funds from Educor's offices.
Meanwhile, the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) is proceeding with deregistration of Educor's institutions due to financial issues and missing annual reports. City Varsity and Icesa City Campus have requested final deregistration after ceasing operations for over a year, while Damelin plans to appeal by 27 March 2026. No responses were received from Educor executives Melvin Munsami and Michael Thurley, or the DHET director-general.
