Teachers stand to lose posts as SA’s provincial education departments face budget shortfall of billions of rands

In addition to feeding schemes and scholar transport being affected, school infrastructure will also suffer as the budget cuts take effect. Photo: Elizabeth Sejake/Gallo Images

By Lisakhanya Venna, Naledi Sikhakhane and Ed Stoddard

21 Sep 2024

The various provincial governments have been spending less and less on teachers over the past decade, which a number of education experts say has compromised the quality of education, especially for those children in underprivileged communities.

A funding crisis is gripping South Africa’s basic education sector.

Several provinces are in the predicament of having to slash spending because the national government did not increase funding for provincial departments to cater for the 7.5% wage increase for public servants for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years. This has resulted in provinces making cuts to fulfil the wage agreement.

In the Western Cape alone, 2,407 teacher contract posts are expected to be eliminated by 2025 because of a staggering R3.8-billion shortfall. This move has been met with criticism and has ignited protests from the Western Cape Education Crisis Movement.

Western Cape MEC for education David Maynier said in a statement that the job cuts are a result of the national government short-changing the province. “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. This leaves the province to fund the remaining 36%, resulting in a massive budget shortfall of R3.8-billion.

“Despite implementing a drastic R2.5-billion budget cut, including on administration, curriculum and infrastructure, we still face a R3.8-billion budget shortfall over the next three years,” said Maynier.

Read more: Western Cape education forced cost-cutting measures hang contract teachers out to dry while angering union

Speaking to Daily Maverick, a government source familiar with the budget process said: “This is the typical thing that happens before the Medium-Term Budget [Policy] Statement. There is always an outcry from departments that they are getting their budgets cut.

“It is not the Treasury’s decision; it is based on provincial MECs who make cuts based on what their budgets are. It is their discretion,” the source said.

“There have been cuts across the board. The provinces have endorsed this budget. It has been passed with their endorsement… The timing of outcries about cuts is always in the lead-up to the Medium-Term Budget [Policy] Statement or the annual budget.”

Some provincial education departments are still consulting stakeholders on what to cut, whereas others have confirmed that thousands of teachers’ jobs will be cut.

Although each province can try to avoid teacher job cuts by trimming in other areas, the cuts in provinces such as the Western Cape raise the already constrained learner:teacher ratio. Some schools in disadvantaged districts are going up to more than 60 learners to one teacher, which is double the recommended ratio of 30:1.

A 2023 analysis by Gabrielle Wills on South African teacher shortages, as revealed through class sizes and learner-educator ratios, showed that “it is incumbent upon provincial administrations to tackle difficult issues of teacher utilisation within schools so that class sizes are better managed”. Wills added that teacher:learner ratios should be prioritised “alongside provincial-specific programmes to reduce very large class sizes through improved learner:educator ratios”.

Wills gave the example of Grade 3, saying that, although class sizes should not exceed 35 learners, as reflected in national guidelines, almost 70% of Grade 3 learners are in classes larger than 35.

Wills said “49% are in classes greater than 40, 17% are in classes greater than 50 and 6% are in classes exceeding 60 learners”.

Affected provinces

The Western Cape is among the provinces severely impacted by the education funding crisis and one of the only provinces that has shared its shortfall and what it will cut.

The Western Cape’s education sector is sizeable, comprising 1,872 schools. They are staffed by 46,508 educators responsible for providing quality education to 1,275,060 learners.

Brenda Simani-Phike, the principal at Masiphumelele Primary School in Khayelitsha, voiced her concerns about class overcrowding.

“Let us just [reduce] our overcrowded classes,” she said.

“If you are faced with 50 learners in a classroom, you are expected to be your best, but your best will never be able to flourish if you cannot reach those learners. Learners are in the classroom, but they cannot access education. Therefore, we need to make sure that the ratio between the teachers and learners is just kept accordingly.”

Meanwhile, the Gauteng Department of Education will cut transport and feeding schemes to save 3,400 teachers’ jobs, Gauteng’s Education MEC Matome Chiloane told News24 on 15 September, raising concerns about the impact on the much-needed hunger alleviation school nutrition programme.

“There is no way we can’t employ educators, because we will end up having more than 100 learners in one classroom per teacher, and that’s not what we want. We are not going to take that direction of the Western Cape,” said Chiloane.

Daily Maverick sent questions to the Gauteng department’s media liaison to explain the MEC’s plans, but no response has been received.

Out of the nine provincial education departments Daily Maverick contacted, only the Western Cape and North West had answers for how much their shortfalls are and where they plan to make financial cuts.

Limpopo education spokesperson Matome Taueatsoala said: “The MEC is still consulting stakeholders on the 2025 post basket. She will issue her declaration after this thorough … process. The declaration will happen by 30 September as the prescripts prescribe,” he said.

The Eastern Cape’s budget allocation for 2024/25 amounts to R44.441-billion from the revised estimate of R41.190-billion. This comes after the province reported “insufficient funding’’, which led to the closure of 86 schools, 114 mergers and 303 realignments, affecting more than 40,000 learners who lost transportation benefits in April this year. However, teaching positions remain unaffected.

Eastern Cape spokesperson for education Malibongwe Mtima said: “The response of the department was that we won’t be cutting down the education posts basket and employment contract of educators. We are not cutting.”

The Northern Cape had a budget of R8,112,487 for the 2024/25 fiscal year. This led the province to adopt cost-effective measures of removing 1,035 unfunded vacancies from the initial proposed structure submitted to the Department of Public Service and Administration. This implies that the original number of posts was reduced from 2,222 to 1,187.

The Free State, a shining star in accounting excellence in the last matric results, faces a daunting challenge – a 1.8% reduction in its education budget. This follows a cut of R400-million from the baseline allocation to provincial bursaries.

Sibusiso Majola, the media liaison for the Free State Education Department, said the province will start discussing the impact of budget cuts in a meeting set for next week.

Thato Mekwa, a physical science teacher in the Free State, said about the number of teachers to learners in her school: “The ratio at my school is 1:60 from Grade 8 to 10. Grade 11 is 1:40 and Grade 12 is 1:35 or less.”

In North West, Department of Education spokesperson Mphata Molokwane said there were proposals for budget cuts of R700-million in other departments.

“This did not affect the filling of vacant school-based posts, which are exempted from cost-containment measures.

“It also posed an opportunity for the department to review its structure in line with our objectives. Furthermore, it allowed the department to improve its system and processes to be efficient.

“The National School Nutrition Programme won’t be affected, and the supply of the programme will remain the same without any reduction,” Molokwane added.

Teacher job cuts raise the already constrained learner:teacher ratio. Some schools in disadvantaged districts are going up to more than 60 learners to one teacher, which is double the recommended ratio of 30:1. (Photo: Sandile Ndlovu / Gallo Images)

Civil society reacts

Basil Manuel, national spokesperson of teachers’ union Naptosa, explained why the Western Cape has been more vocal about the budget cuts than most provinces.

“The Western Cape, in many instances, rallies ahead of the rest of the country… There is a statutory imperative that, by the end of September, every school has to know what its post divisioning looks like for the next year. In other words, they must know how many staff they will have for the next year,’’ Manuel said.

“The Western Cape was running ahead, so it could declare and it got all the facts as it possibly could have. But subsequently, we’ve had Mpumalanga, and they haven’t declared yet, but they are sitting in a similar situation where they have a few hundred posts [on the shortlist],” Manuel said.

“Gauteng has the same, but Gauteng, in the meantime, has given an indication ... [with] the MEC saying that they will not cut teacher posts. Rather, they will look at other things. Unfortunately, other things mentioned were transport and the feeding scheme.”

Manuel said KwaZulu-Natal has 11,000 posts that are under threat. He likened the province to a special child, saying its basic education needs “special care for many things”.

“They haven’t even paid out the norms and standards money for last year,” Manuel said, referring to the money that each school receives for textbooks, the replacement of furniture, and so on. He said Naptosa still does not have a full picture of how the whole country is affected and will only know that by 9 or 10 October, when it meets the nine education MECs and Treasury.

Manuel questioned where the funds will come from to implement proposed changes such as those in the recently approved Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Act.

“If we lose 2,000 posts in a province, what does it say about Grade R, now that the Bela Bill is an Act and Grade R will be introduced? We know it’s incremental, but you must be making provision for the first batch of people in 2025 to be appointed,” he said.

“Similarly, what about these 19 new subjects we are introducing? ... These things are a nice pipe dream. It is nice on paper, but they have no intention of implementing them…

“There is an intention out of the Bela Bill that we need to do more about mother tongue-based bilingual education. How are you pulling this off? Where are they getting the budget from?” he asked.

Equal Education researcher Mahfouz Raffee agreed that the job cuts are concerning because they lead to a higher learner:teacher ratio, which negatively affects the quality of the learning process.

“This impacts a lot of the campaigns that our members fight for – from overcrowding and safety and psychosocial support (large and unruly class sizes affect teacher and learner mental health), to school admissions (learners are turned away because schools are full) and infrastructure (overcrowded schools lack sufficient classrooms, desks, chairs, etc),” he said.

Equal Education has been campaigning against fiscal austerity and inequitable spending for a long time, “but unfortunately the government has not been very receptive”, Raffee noted.

In addition to feeding schemes and scholar transport being affected, school infrastructure will also suffer as the budget cuts take effect. (Photo: Elizabeth Sejake / Gallo Images)

Budget dynamics

In response to Daily Maverick queries, National Treasury media unit explained that the National Budget is tabled in February each year, including allocations to national departments and the division of revenue across the three spheres of government.

Provinces are required to table their budgets within 14 days of the National Budget tabling. Therefore, the national government’s expenditure decisions and the individual provincial budgets will be outlined at those times.

“In the meantime, please note that, as tabled every year in the Division of Revenue, the portion of provincial funding that comes from the national government is distributed through the provincial equitable share.

“Once provinces receive the transfers from the national government (and any other revenue they may raise within their own powers and jurisdiction), they are constitutionally and legally responsible to formulate their own budgets, distributing available resources to the departments and sectors that they are prioritising.

“Although the national government annually provides guidance to provinces in respect of budgeting, it [neither] instructs provinces on which of their numerous departments to fund, nor do reductions in allocations implemented for the purposes of fiscal consolidation include any instructions about the trade-offs provinces must implement,” said Treasury. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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South Africa

Affected provinces

Civil society reacts

Budget dynamics