Education staff cuts not ideal this time

NEWS that Kwazulu-natal’s Department of Education intends retrenching some 4 000 staff including 2 000 teachers – as a result of R6.3 billion in budget cuts – could not have come at a worse time.

Apart from the fact that the province already has some 2 000 young teacher graduates sitting at home due to the department’s failure to fill a known 6 114 vacant posts, there is also the massive impact that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on pupils, with a significant amount of classroom time lost. If anything, KZN needs more teachers – not less. That there may now not be a teacher in every classroom is criminal. Then there are the teachers already within the system, who must not only deal with increased workloads but also bigger classes.

Our province will not only be experiencing a teaching crisis. We will be heading directly into an education crisis. The ANC government has forgotten its commitment to ensuring that quality education remains a top priority.

Then there are the years of mismanagement by the KZN department. Despite massive budget constraints looming for several years, there has been no indication of any forward planning – all evidence of the lack of a capable state.

The Da-led Western Cape has been affected by the same budget cuts. The difference is that this Education Department had not looted its coffers and managed to save jobs and even employ more staff earlier this year.

The DA in KZN has already highlighted the issue of teacher retrenchments, both publicly and through the provincial education portfolio committee. Regrettably, when asked for a plan, the MEC and his department looked like deer caught in the headlights. The only response they could give us was to go, begging bowl in hand, to the National Treasury, after the proposal for more money to fill posts was rejected by the provincial treasury.

One can only hope this wish will be granted and that the Treasury will produce a rabbit out of a hat. With so many futures at stake, the alternative is too terrible to contemplate.

DR IMRAN KEEKA I MPL and DA KZN spokesperson on education.