An attendee at the meeting in Community House, Salt River in Cape Town on Saturday, 7 September. (Photo: Lisakanya Ashley Venna) 
A united front against education cuts emerged at Salt River’s Community House on Saturday, 7 September where teachers, parents, learners and union representatives met to resist the Western Cape Government’s plan to cut 2,407 teacher posts by 2025.
The cuts to teaching posts were announced earlier this month by MEC David Maynier.
Western Cape Education MEC David Maynier. (Photo: Gallo Images / Nardus Engelbrecht)
In the announcement, Maynier said that “we are doing everything we can to fight for our teachers, but 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%, resulting in a massive budget shortfall of R3.8-billion.”
Read more: ‘The system is going to collapse’ – Union warns Western Cape over plans to slash 2,400 teaching posts
The meeting, which drew more than 40 attendees, was chaired by Abeedah Adams, one of the six people who initiated the movement.
Adams said that “when we got the news of the pending cuts of 2,407 teachers, it was very alarming and we were concerned and we kept looking out to see who is going to respond to this, and we eventually came to the realisation that we need to do something.’’
The movement opposing budget cuts has expanded significantly, with its WhatsApp group up to 1,000 members. The group has also initiated a petition which has gained 50,000 signatures to date.
Aliah Chickte, a movement member, said it was hoped the petition would reach 100,000 signatures by the end of the year. The signatures will be submitted during the budget speech next year, as the movement continues to advocate against budget cuts.
Call to action
Community member Brian Ashley emphasised the need for a collective effort to stop budget cuts across essential sectors.
“We have to stop the cuts in education, social security and health. We can’t just focus on education, though it is extremely important, we have to defend our teachers, we have to defend our children’s education – we have to stop the cuts and we can do this by mobilising those in terms of what we do now locally, building structures, to coordinate, to understand, to educate, to understand the nature of the cuts that have been taking place and the impact and where the money can come from.’’
An attendee at the meeting in Community House, Salt River in Cape Town on Saturday, 7 September. (Photo: Lisakanya Ashley Venna)
Ashley criticised the Democratic Alliance (DA) for its role in the budget cuts claiming that “the DA, which is hiding behind Treasury, now has been the one putting the most pressure on (President Cyril) Ramaphosa to cut budgets, to bring down the wages of public sector workers which are poor.”
Union response
Sibongile Kwazi, Provincial Secretary of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) in the Western Cape, said there was a contradiction between the DA’s election manifesto promises and its current actions.
“The employer of teachers in the province is not the minister of education, but it is the head of education for this province… Our fight needs to be with them in this province, and you will remember that in the manifesto of the DA, they promised to create more jobs, and what they are doing now is the direct opposite because they are cutting the jobs, instead of creating more jobs.”
Kwazi said that “we were the first ones to hear about the cuts and the teachers’ staff establishments. By legislation, that is by law, every year the education department must consult all teacher unions as well as school governing organisations on the budget of posts for the following year. This year, we were told that because of the budget cuts, we are short of R3.8-billion within WCED and with the increases of salaries of teachers for 2024, nationally, that is the Department of Education nationally, only paid 64% of that money.”
Kwezi said Sadtu had already met Cosatu and would convene a stakeholders’ meeting soon.
Learner response
Yonela Zembe, a learner from Manzomthombo Secondary School and a member of Equal Education, voiced her concerns in the meeting.
“The reason that Equal Education has come here is because, without a teacher, there is no learner and without a learner and a teacher, there is no school,” Zembe said.
Zembe expressed surprise at the sudden interest in Equal Education from teachers: “I want to say to my teachers, with you here, you’ve called for Equal Education to come and represent you here today only because it benefits you, but for the past 16 years that Equal Education has been operating, you have never even once attended one of our events… but today, we are here to intertwine with you and show you that we are in this together, so we want you to return that back.”
Multiple speakers suggested follow-up meetings to further discuss the issue, while others called for immediate action.
Maynier’s plea
Citing the R3.8-billion budget shortfall because of national funding cuts, MEC Maynier urged teachers’ unions to cooperate.
In a statement released on Thursday, 5 September, he said “striking will not change the fact that we are being short-changed by the national government”.
“The situation is critical. If we do not take drastic action to cover the massive shortfall, we compromise our ability to pay for our bills, which includes the salaries of teachers.” DM