Start with the hub: ChatGPT for South African Teachers (CAPS). This page is the school-rules chapter: a traffic-light you can table at SMT or a phase meeting. It is a starter, not a policy you photocopy onto a letterhead without your principal.
Why a traffic light, not a ban-or-free-for-all
Staff are already using public ChatGPT at home. Learners with phones are too. A blanket ban you cannot police helps nobody. A “use it for everything” message wrecks SBA and exam integrity.
England’s Department for Education says teacher-facing use has more immediate benefit and fewer risks than pupil-facing use, and that schools may choose teacher-only, admin-only, or limited pupil use. That is England, not South Africa. Use it as a comparator. Your SGB and SMT still decide.
South Australian public schools use a similar idea with their own tool, EdChat: some tasks are a red light (the teacher needs to see the learner’s own writing), some are green (AI may help pull ideas together). You can steal the colours, not the chatbot. South Africa does not currently offer a department-owned ChatGPT equivalent on the public web.
Default for most SA schools
Until your SMT writes something tighter:
- Teacher-side prep is allowed (green), with no learner personal data and a CAPS/ATP check before anything is taught or printed.
- Learner-facing ChatGPT is off (red) in Foundation Phase, and off for unsupervised homework in all phases, unless the school has devices, supervision and an agreed task.
- Formal assessment is red unless the task sheet itself says how AI may be used.
Primary detail sits on ChatGPT for Primary Teachers. FET, SBA and NSC sit on the FET integrity chapter in this cluster.
Traffic lights (print this table)
| Light | Meaning | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Green | Allowed. Still check the output. | Teacher drafts of lesson outlines, worksheets, memos, FAL-friendly rewrites, anonymised parent-note starters, extra practice questions. Generate at home or wherever you have signal. Print or board-write. Learners do not need accounts. |
| Amber | Allowed only if the task sheet says so, and a teacher can see the process. | Supervised class activity in FET or Senior Phase: “use ChatGPT to generate three counter-arguments, then you must reject or rewrite two of them in your own words.” Translation drafts that a language teacher then checks. |
| Red | Not allowed. | NSC and other formal exams. SBA, PAT, orals and practicals that must be the learner’s own work. Pasting class lists, reports, photos, IDs or mark sheets into ChatGPT. Unsupervised chatbot homework for Grade R-3. AI-written report comments sent to parents under a teacher’s name. |
Green does not mean “paste and photocopy”. Hallucinated CAPS page numbers stay your problem.
Staff rules (non-negotiable)
- No personal information in public ChatGPT. No names, ID numbers, addresses, photos, medical notes, behaviour incidents or full mark lists. Use
[Learner A]. Prefer a school-approved platform if your district or SGB has one. - You remain accountable. If you print it, you checked it against CAPS, the ATP and your assessment plan.
- Do not invent official codes. If the model offers CAPS page numbers or outcome codes, delete them.
- Do not use ChatGPT as the school’s voice to parents or learners (newsletters and reports that pretend to be you). Draft, then rewrite in your own words offline.
- Follow age and terms of the tool. Public ChatGPT is not a child account. Do not create logins for learners unless SMT has approved a tool and a supervision plan.
This is practical caution, not legal advice. POPIA is administered by the Information Regulator. Schools have information officers. Ask yours. Do not treat this page as a POPIA opinion.
Victoria (Australia) goes further: staff must not use generative AI to communicate with parents or students, to judge achievement, or to write reports. That is Victorian policy. It is a useful red line to discuss, not a South African regulation.
Learner rules (put on the task sheet)
Do not hide AI rules in a handbook nobody opens. For each task, one line is enough:
- Red: “Do not use ChatGPT or similar tools. We need your own work for this SBA.”
- Amber: “You may use ChatGPT for step 1 only. Paste your prompt and the first output in the appendix. The marked work must be your rewrite.”
- Green: rare for assessed work. Prefer green for teacher prep.
If two teachers in the same grade give opposite instructions, learners will follow the easier one. Agree the colours in a phase meeting.
SMT agenda (15 minutes)
- Confirm the default: teacher-side green, learner-facing red until we say otherwise.
- Name one person (HOD or ICT) who will watch for DBE or provincial circulars.
- Tell staff not to buy “ChatGPT for Teachers” (that plan is US K-12 only). See the eligibility page in this wave.
- Decide who tells parents, in ordinary language, that teachers may use AI for prep and that learner data will not be pasted into public tools.
Copy-paste staff notice
ChatGPT at our school (staff)
- You may use ChatGPT on a personal or school account for lesson and resource drafts.
- Do not enter learner names, IDs, photos, marks or behaviour notes.
- Check every draft against the subject CAPS file and current ATP before you teach or print.
- Do not invent CAPS codes or page numbers.
- Learners may not use ChatGPT for SBA, PAT, orals, practicals or exams unless the task sheet says so.
- Foundation Phase: teacher-side only.
- If you are unsure, ask your HOD before you set the homework.Go deeper
- Prompts and Free vs Plus: ChatGPT hub
- Ethics: ChatGPT and the CAPS curriculum
- Assessment forms and recording: CAPS assessment
- England (comparator only): DfE generative AI in education