Unions challenge decrease in teaching posts in Western Cape

Teacher unions have lodged disputes against cutting education posts in the Western Cape after the education department announced its R3.8bn budget shortfall over the next three years.

The SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) said the cutting of 2,407 educator posts by the Western Cape education department was based on the results of the 2024 fiscal outlook. The National Treasury funded only 64% of the Compensation of Employees (CoE), which resulted in a shortfall of R3.8bn over the 2024 medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF).

“While we acknowledge the reduction of the [Western Cape education department] budget, we believe that the employer did not explore all areas where they could reduce spending. Sadtu proposes the halting of the Back on Track programme for 2025 as it benefits only a fraction of the pupils, who experienced learning losses during the Covid-19 lockdown,” said Sadtu provincial secretary Sibongile Kwazi.

“We also proposed the suspension of the annual systemic evaluation, which costs millions of rand, for 2025 as the department has sufficient data to inform interventions needed to improve educational outcomes.”

She said poor, working-class communities would bear the brunt of the reduction of posts as quality education was the only way for the poor to escape the cycle of poverty.

National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA (Naptosa) provincial CEO Riedwaan Ahmed said the projected teacher-pupil ratios left much to be desired as overcrowding was already a challenge in schools, especially in the poorer communities.

The graphic below shows the ratio:

“The determination of educator posts allocated to institutions is a provincial competence, informed by allocations from the National Treasury with the interpretation of 80% of the budget allocated to compensation of employees (CoE).

“Engagements in the form of consultations with the MEC and the head of education concluded on July 23 and August 15 respectively,” said Ahmed.

“In balancing the CoE, the [Western Cape education department] has proposed a reduction in the basket of posts allocated to ordinary state schools. In our view, this will have a devastating impact on education in our province. There is a need to deliver quality education, which requires a collective resolve and strategic vision.”

Provincial minister of education David Maynier said the reduction in posts would result in some contract teachers not being reappointed when their contracts ended on December 31, while some permanent teachers would be asked to move to other schools, where there were suitable vacancies.

“The formula determining how the total number of teaching posts gets divided between schools is prescribed by the national government, and takes into account class sizes, the workload of teachers, the size of the school, language, curriculum, poverty and other factors,” said Maynier.

He said there were more schools in metro than rural areas and that special-needs schools were protected.

The department has issued the following list of the education posts that would be affected by the budget cuts in each district:

“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 reasons behind this decision,” said Maynier.

“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%.

“We should never have been put in this position, and we will do everything we can to fight for our teachers in the Western Cape,” said Maynier.

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