10 September 2024
Equal Education (EE) and the Equal Education Law Centre (EELC) strongly oppose the Western Cape Education Department’s (WCED) harsh decision to cut 2407 teaching posts amid ongoing budget constraints. Fiscal austerity (budget cuts, reducing government social spending) continues to deprive learners of the full realisation of their constitutional right to basic education. This is the latest in a series of effects that show how budget cuts are impacting the futures of learners. Through austerity, provinces and education departments are being forced into unfair choices at the expense of poor and working-class communities whose constitutional rights the state is obliged to protect.
For 11 years, National Treasury has slashed social spending, claiming that it is key to reducing government debt. But, after a decade of austerity and debt service costs continuing to skyrocket, Treasury has “little to show” for its approach. Economists have long noted that cutting social spending “flies in the face of evidence that cuts to public investment can lead to higher public debt.” In fact, the only thing it has managed to reduce is access to basic and non-negotiable human rights.
Since 2019, the amount of money spent per learner on basic education has decreased in real terms each year (i.e. after accounting for CPI inflation). This decline has constrained the ability of education departments to provide basic services to learners and schools, particularly in poor communities. Across the country, teachers and learners grapple with poor learning conditions – including neglected and bad school infrastructure, unreliable and unsafe learner transport, poor sanitation, unsafe environments, and overcrowded classrooms.
Eleven years after the government introduced the Minimum Uniform Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure, the Department of Basic Education has failed to meet its deadlines to provide schools with proper infrastructure, including getting rid of pit latrines. Provinces like Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal do not fund schools at the prescribed level, which means that no-fee schools—already very under-resourced—struggle to meet basic needs like paying municipal bills, buying textbooks and cleaning supplies, or doing necessary maintenance. As a teacher in the Western Cape explained to us, cutting teacher posts will be an unbearable strain on an already overburdened education system.
“The rationalisation and the 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 and this most certainly will negatively affect every community that we serve. In an already challenging school environment where we are devoid of essential resources, have oversized classes and have excessive amounts of administration the mass reduction of teaching posts will definitely disable our ability to provide quality education.” – A teacher in the Western Cape.
The decision to reduce teacher posts will prolong and worsen the crises faced by the education sector. In 2017/18, nearly half (48%) of Grade 3 learners were taught in overcrowded classrooms with more than 40 learners. Severely overcrowded classes, with 50 to 60 learners in a lesson, are still prevalent in many poorly-resourced schools across the country. Years of relentless austerity have worsened this situation. The average learner-teacher ratio across the public school system has increased from 27.4 learners per teacher in 2011 to 29.8 in 2021. Following budget cuts, the WCED estimates that its learner-teacher ratio will increase to 36.7 learners per teacher in 2025.
“We already have an issue with overcrowding. Teachers struggle to control a class of 50 learners. If these cuts go ahead, 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
Teachers are perhaps the most crucial factor in providing learners with quality education. Having enough teachers in schools helps keep class sizes manageable, allows for more individual attention, and creates a supportive learning environment. Larger class sizes put a lot of pressure on teachers, putting their mental and physical health under strain, making them less likely to provide learners with the individual attention they need, and more likely to use harmful disciplinary measures. For learners, especially those in under-resourced schools, this means less academic support, worse performance, and additional stress, often resulting in a harmful learning environment.
These cuts will likely contribute to the year on year admissions crisis faced in provinces with large in-migration learner numbers like the Western Cape and Gauteng. Schools in these provinces are already facing an overcrowding and school admissions crisis and, with fewer teachers, the crisis is set to become more severe.
While country-wide budget cuts are the main culprit, provincial governments also bear responsibility, as they have significant discretion to allocate funds and prioritise education spending within their province. The Western Cape currently spends less than 37% of its total budget on basic education in 2024/25, the second-lowest share compared to a national average of 41%. Relative to other provinces, the WCED also allocates the smallest share to its staff, with 72% of its education budget going towards the compensation of its employees, compared to a national average of 76%.. With planned public expenditure on education in the Western Cape set to decrease in real terms over the next three years, we fear that this will incentivise opportunistic actors in the private sector to increase their involvement in the provision of basic education, a nd profit at the expense of vulnerable and desperate communities.
The WCED has also failed to explain whether they have taken sufficient measures to shield the poorest and most vulnerable communities from the harsh effects of these budget cuts. From a sample of 45 schools set to lose posts, 29 were designated no-fee schools by the WCED, according to the Education Management Information System. While this does not provide the full picture, it does raise serious concerns that more teacher posts are being cut at under-resourced schools.
The ongoing budget cuts have put our education system in a very dangerous position. At first-glance, a review of provincial education departments’ spending on staff salaries indicates that the Western Cape’s shortfall, impacting over 2400 teachers, may just be the tip of the iceberg, with potentially more extreme funding gaps existing in other provinces. 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.
Education is a fundamental human right, enshrined in our Constitution, and should be upheld and protected without compromise, ensuring that all children have access to quality learning opportunities. We call on the public to defend the right to education by participating in a community-led picket at the WCED offices on Friday 13 September at 7:30 am. We further call on the national government and provincial authorities to rethink their budget priorities, invest in our future, protect teachers’ livelihoods, and protect the rights of learners. As a country tormented by the cruelty of obscene inequality, poverty, and unemployment – we cannot bear the additional trauma of intensified austerity measures on our education system. As the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement approaches, Parliament must take heed of this crisis and change budget policies to ensure they comply with the Constitution.
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To arrange a media interview, contact:
Sesethu August (Equal Education Communications Officer)
WhatsApp: 083 890 8723
Call: 063 221 7983
Jay-Dee Booysen (Equal Education Law Centre Media and Communications Specialist)
WhatsApp/Call : 082 924 1352
