The Western Cape Education Department’s announcement that it will be cutting more than 2400 teaching posts has left parents, teachers and unions up in arms.
The WCED said the job cuts would be effective from 1 January 2025.
The department claimed while it’s been fighting tooth and nail to save teaching posts, they had no other choice after being short-changed by the national government, receiving only 64% of the cost of the nationally negotiated wage agreement, leaving the province to fund the remaining 36%.
This resulted in a massive budget shortfall of R3.8 billion, which will weigh upon the department’s shoulders for the next three years.
This shortfall stands despite the WCED already implementing a drastic R2.5 billion budget cut in which they had frozen posts of non-educator staff at Head Office and in districts, leaving the current educator vacancy rate at only 21%.
Brent Walters, the WCED Head of Education, said there is not enough money to pay all the teachers.
“We can now either run into the red financially or we can reluctantly reduce the number of educators in our system in order to afford our current wage bill.”
He said schools would receive their 2025 basket of post allocations on 30 August 2024.
Tania Colyn, acting spokesperson for Education MEC David Maynier, says the department has engaged with educator unions regarding proposals to address the shortfall and will communicate the decision to schools.
“We should never have been put in this position,” she adds.
Provincial Head of the Educators and Allied Workers Union of South Africa (EUSA) André de Bruyn, says cutting down is steering previously disadvantaged schools closer to gutter education.
“Schools are already overcrowded, teachers are already overwhelmed, especially administratively. The cut will be totally detrimental to quality education.
“The affluent schools will not will not bear the brunt of this decision but rather poor communities and the schools who serve it.”
A teacher who recently started teaching in the foundation phase said the announcement sent them into a state of panic.
“Our classrooms are already so full, some with more than 40 learners in a class, what will we sit with now? Also, what will this mean for the learners? It’s not a fair decision.”
Education activist Hendrick Makaneta says instead of cutting jobs, more teachers are actually needed.
“There is a high demand for more schools due to the growing population.”
The founder of Parents for Equal Education SA (PEESA) Vanessa le Roux believes the cuts will cause “a total implosion” of education in the province.
“The department should be taken to court, this is criminal.
“Then we are also going to have people who are going to lose their livelihoods and qualified, well educated teachers taking their skills to other countries, it’s an atrocity.”
ANC spokesperson on Education, Muhammad Khalid Sayed called the cuts outrageous.
“It is perplexing that, while other provinces are also affected by the public wage agreement, only the Western Cape is implementing such drastic and reckless measures.”
Tracy-Lynn Ruiters
www.dailyvoice.co.za