The post Joint media statement: Equal Education and the Equal Education Law Centre strongly oppose the Western Cape Education Department’s decision to cut over 2000 teaching posts appeared first on Equal Education.
IN SUMMARY:
- Equal Education (EE) and the Equal Education Law Centre (EELC) oppose the Western Cape Education Department’s (WCED) decision to cut 2407 teaching posts due to budget constraints.
- Budget cuts undermine learners’ constitutional right to basic education, especially affecting poor and working-class communities.
- National Treasury has enforced budget cuts for 11 years, aiming to reduce debt, but has failed to deliver meaningful results.
- Since 2019, education spending per learner has decreased, leading to poor learning conditions, overcrowded classrooms, inadequate infrastructure, and insufficient sanitation.
- Eleven years after introducing the Minimum Uniform Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure, deadlines for improving school infrastructure, such as eliminating pit latrines, remain unmet.
- Poorly resourced schools struggle to meet basic needs like paying bills and purchasing textbooks, with no-fee schools most affected.
- The reduction in teacher posts will worsen overcrowding: 48% of Grade 3 learners in 2017/18 were taught in overcrowded classrooms with more than 40 learners. The average learner-teacher ratio in public schools increased from 27.4 learners per teacher in 2011 to 29.8 learners per teacher in 2021.
- WCED estimates the ratio will increase to 36.7 learners per teacher by 2025 due to cuts.
- Teachers express concerns that budget cuts will “collapse education,” promote inequality, and affect learners’ futures.
- Larger class sizes strain teachers’ mental and physical health, reducing their ability to provide individual attention, worsening learner performance, and increasing dropouts.
- Budget cuts also contribute to the admissions crisis in provinces like Gauteng and the Western Cape, which face high migration rates.
- If we factor in the 2024/25 4.7% cost-of-living wage adjustment, Gauteng’s planned employee spending for this financial year faces a shortfall of more than R2 billion. In KwaZulu-Natal, the shortfall is more than R3 billion. This does not consider financial pressures on other essential items in the education budget, like textbooks, scholar transport, and transfers to schools.
- While national budget cuts are central, provincial governments like the Western Cape also allocate less (72%) than the national average to education spending and staff compensation (76%).
- EE calls for public action against these austerity measures, emphasizing education as a fundamental human right that must be protected.
- EE calls on the public to defend education by participating in a picket at the WCED offices on Friday, 13 September at 7:30 am.
- “The rationalisation and redeployment of educators, I fear, is the precipice to the total collapse of education, as education is the fabric that holds the hopes and dreams of our children. Austerity measures is a weapon that will leave the majority of children deficient and without direction and will further promote inequality. We as educators will be left barren and without purpose…,” – Western Cape teacher.
- “We already have an issue with overcrowding. Teachers struggle to control a class of 50 learners… there will be more dropouts – what’s the use of going to school if you are 60 in a class and teachers are unable to give proper attention to struggling learners?” – Yonela Zembe, Western Cape Equaliser.
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To arrange a media interview, contact:
- Sesethu August (Equal Education Communications Officer) sesethu@equaleducation.org.za WhatsApp/Call: 083 890 8723
- Jay-Dee Booysen (Equal Education Law Centre Media and Communications Specialist) jay-dee@eelawcentre.org.za WhatsApp/Call : 082 924 1352
