SENIOR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS AND MEMBERS OF THE EXECUTIVE IN BASIC EDUCATION MUST COMPULSORILY TAKE THEIR CHILDREN TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) is worried that government continues to bungle the delivery of basic education at the expense of our children, their futures and the future of this country. In a comprehensive report on the Inadequate and/or lack of provision of essential services and basic infrastructure by various organs of state in certain villages within the province of Eastern Cape, a section dealing with complaints in the basic education sector confirmed our worst worries.
Our worry has been and is still the impact on learning and teaching by lack of infrastructure, procurement of goods and hiring of educators. By example of two schools – Loyiso Secondary School and Cancele Primary School – the investigation by the Public Protector has painted an anecdotal proof of the true state of public schools in rural areas across our country. For instance, Loyiso Secondary School enrols 618 learners but has 10 classrooms only. This means, on average, there are 61 learners per classroom. But, because learners are not spread evenly across grades, this means other classrooms have more learners than the average. Hence there are 116 learners in a grade 9 classroom, 121 in one grade 8 classroom and 164 learners in one grade 10 classroom.
This situation acutely illustrates the problem of classroom overcrowding that we have lamented for some time, and the consequence that arise out of it. Overcrowding is not a conducive environment under which learning and teaching can take place effectively. Educators waste a lot of teaching time on discipline and often cannot cover their curriculum as expected within a stipulated timeframe. This disadvantages all learners as they miss on teaching time.
This condition even robs learners who have barriers to learning from accessing education because an educator has no amble time to give each learner a deserved attention and would not give adequate assessment feedback to all the learners.
In addition, the school has no administration block. Educators, at a total of 17, are crammed into one staffroom. Just as classroom overcrowding has negative ramifications, so is staffroom overcrowding. Staffrooms are meant to be spaces in which educators do their administrative work such as marking, recording of assessments and filing. Overcrowded staff-rooms are not conducive for this, and contributes to unnecessary strife among educators.
The school (Loyiso Secondary) has no library, natural science laboratory and school hall. Let alone a computer laboratory. But these revelations do not shock us because the National Education Infrastructure Management System (NEIMS) reported that out of a total of 23,276 schools in the country in 2021, 17,832 had no libraries, 19,840 had no natural science laboratories and 15,584 had no computer laboratories/centres. Even in schools that had computer centres, such centres are often small and contain old, worn equipment. Some schools with designated libraries do not have reading materials in those libraries.
Fiscal austerity
The lack of infrastructure in schools is not only due to mismanagement, but also due to fiscal budget cuts. Hence the staff establishment is an additional problem, which leaves the poorest schools (quintile 1 to 3) most affected. The learner enrolment and number of teachers at Loyiso gives evidence to this, as it is 1:36. This is despite the fact that educators in principal and deputy principal posts do not a lot of teaching. Public service institutions are already understaffed, and the intermittent moratorium on the filing of vacant posts (including this one) has had further detrimental consequences on the departments.
Recently, we have seen a memorandum circulating from the National Treasury, urging departments to apply austerity measures by amongst others, freezing vacant posts. Freezing and the reduction of public service headcount has produced Educator-to-learner
ratio of 1:31 in basic education; Police-to-population ratio of 1:413; Nurse-to-patient ratio of 1:224; Doctor-to-patient ratio of 3,198 and a Social worker-to-patient ration of 1:5000.
The Eastern Cape Department of Education has indicated to the public protector that they have about 180 schools that require maintenance in areas of one infrastructure service to the other, from ablution facilities to fencing to libraries. This is a serious crisis. The sad part is that the consequence of this crisis, borne by the working class, denies our children their basic right to education. No child can learn in this environment.
Meanwhile these politicians are bungling the public education, disadvantaging our children, they take their children to expensive schools in posh suburbs. SAFTU demands that executive members of government in senior positions – from ministers to district directors/managers – must all take their children to public schools between quintile 1 and 3. This is the only way we will begin to see a meaningful change in public schools, and other institutions of public service.
SAFTU further rejects the fiscal austerity measures that are being imposed across government, even when Loyiso Secondary School bears testimony of their detriment.
