“Strike a teacher, strike a nation.” That was one of the chants shouted by protesters in the southern suburbs against the provincial education department’s plan to cut 2 400 teacher posts next year in response to national government budget cuts.
Scores of teachers, parents and pupils from Windsor High School picketed, on the corner of Imam Haron Road and Queen Bess Road, in Lansdowne, on Wednesday September 18. They held up placards saying, “Say no to budget cuts,” “Save our teachers, save our schools,” and “Stop corruption, not education.”
“Cutting the jobs of the teacher should be a last resort. This means that classes may be overcrowded; it means that certain high school subjects would have to be dropped,” said a Windsor High teacher who asked not to be named.
Another Windsor High teacher said: “I recently completed my four-year degree to be a teacher, and it is concerning that if we are to apply for new jobs we can be told that we are losing our jobs.”
Windsor High’s school governing body chairperson Rushni Majiet said: “We have quality teachers at Windsor High that are loyal and committed, and if teachers lose their jobs, it will be the pupils’ education that will be impacted.”
Meanwhile, on the same day, parents and teachers stood with placards in front of Golden Grove Primary School in Stuart Road, Rondebosch.
Teachers’ careers did not appear to be recognised or valued, said one of the picketing teachers.
“We are an important cog in the wheel, and our opinions regarding education are of value as we deal with a generation who will lead us in future,” she said.
Parent Gasant Abarder, who organised the picket at Golden Grove, said it was an injustice for a government with a bloated cabinet to cut teacher posts.
“We must stand in solidarity with all teachers from all areas,” he said. “It will affect the quality of education.”
In a statement last month, Education MEC David Maynier said the Western Cape had received only 64% of the cost of the nationally negotiated wage agreement from the national government, leaving the province to fund the remaining 36%, resulting in a R3.8 billion budget shortfall over the next three years, despite a R2.5 billion budget cut by the province.
“We have also frozen the recruitment of most public service staff, encouraged schools to convert contract appointments, and restricted the appointment of substitute teachers,” he said, adding: “To remain fiscally stable, we will have no choice but to reduce the basket of educator posts by approximately 2 400 posts in 2025.”
In a further statement, on Monday September 16, Mr Maynier said the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) did not want to cut funding to schools with special education or funding for school meals and transport or funding for operational expenses such as stationery, water and electricity at schools.
“The choice to reduce the number of teaching posts was therefore an unavoidable one,” he said.
The South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) has rejected the plan to cull the posts.
“While we acknowledge the reduction of the WCED budget, we believe that the employer did not explore all areas where they could reduce spending,” the union said in a statement.
Poor, working-class communities would bear the brunt of the cuts, it said, arguing that quality public education was the only way out of poverty for many.
The union said its next step was to declare a dispute with the Education Labour Relations Council, and the matter would be heard in October.
