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In the persisting South African education crisis, low quintile schools are known for their lack of adequate resources, poorly trained teachers who lack content and pedagogical knowledge, overcrowded classrooms, and a lack of parental support. I used a qualitative, exploratory, descriptive design to explore South African low quintile school teachers' knowledge of self-regulated learning as well as their perceptions of how they develop self-regulated learning in learners. I conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 purposively and conveniently selected Grade 8 secondary school teachers. The participants hold positive beliefs about self-regulated learning but lack pedagogical knowledge to develop this. They also experience departmental pressure regarding curriculum coverage, assessment, and administration that inhibits their time to do so. The participants perceive their efforts to develop self-regulated learning as being weighed down because this is not a priority at school, with high pass rates in the Annual National Assessment and Senior Secondary School Certificate examinations taking precedence. Future research needs more classroom-based studies to determine how teachers might start to become more skilful at teaching self-regulated learning skills since the development of this is not an automatic process but needs to be supported in learners.