‘Education will suffer greatly from teacher post cuts’

The reduction in posts will mean that some contract teachers will not be reappointed after their contracts end on December 31, and some permanent teachers will be asked to move to another school where there is a suitable vacancy.

This is according to the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) following the recent announcement that teacher posts will be reduced by 2 500 in the new year.

Education MEC David Maynier said: “We are not firing teachers, and we are not retrenching teachers. The reduction in posts will mean that some contract teachers will not be reappointed after their contracts end on 31 December 2024, and some permanent teachers will be asked to move to another school where there is a suitable vacancy. We understand that this will result in difficult choices for our schools. We have been engaging with teachers’ unions in this regard over the past month, to ensure that they understand the reason behind this decision.

“It is not a decision that has been taken lightly. We are in this position because we are 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%. Despite implementing a drastic R2.5 billion budget cut, including on administration, curriculum and infrastructure, we still face a R3.8bn budget shortfall over the next three years,” the WCED said.

Maynier added: “We are doing everything we can to fight for our teachers, and I have raised the matter on the Council of Education Ministers (CEM) for urgent action, because these budget shortfalls impact all the provinces. Matters raised at CEM are then taken to the Department of Basic Education.”

National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) said they are “completely opposed” to any measures to reduce the number of teachers.

Naptosa executive director Basil Manuel said: “When you look at the tenth-day statistics of the year to determine your basket of posts, it’s actually not an exact science because after the tenth school day, many more children are enrolled.

For the union this does mean we are exploring various options and we have made representations both provincially and nationally. At a national level, we did plead to ensure that the socially based departments are not negatively impacted.

“We need to protect these departments because they are people intensive and you can’t do with fewer people. “Education will suffer enormously with the reduction of numbers in teachers. Because we are trying to introduce the three streams model where we’ll cater for non-academic offerings – which are more geared to children who are non-academic,” said Manuel.

He said teachers will bear the brunt of bigger classes, but the children will suffer most.

ANC member Rachel Windvogel expressed grave concern about the decision to reduce the number of teaching posts.

“The drastic measure follows the implementation of WCED Circular 34 of 2023, which has already caused significant harm to under-resourced schools, as these schools have been left with large, unmanageable class sizes and have struggled to cover the shortfall with substitute teachers due to financial constraints,” said Windvogel.

Cape Times