Thousands of teaching posts to be cut in the Western Cape

The quality of education in the Western Cape is likely to worsen if the provincial government proceeds to cut thousands of teaching posts. But the province says it simply doesn’t have money. Illustration: Lisa Nelson

More than 2,400 educator posts will be cut in the Western Cape from 1 January 2025. This is according to a circular issued by the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) on Tuesday on posts for 2025.

In the circular, the WCED’s head of education, Brent Walters, said the department only received 64% of the cost of the public sector wage agreement, with the remaining 36% to be funded by the province.

Walters said in an effort to cut spending, the WCED had frozen the recruitment of non-educator staff at head office and across districts, with a current vacancy rate of 21%, and had also cut spending across its directorates.

According to the WCED, a circular was issued on 21 November 2023, indicating that to maintain the number of permanent teaching posts in the system and stability in the schools, “cost containment measures” needed to be implemented.

But despite budget cuts of R2.5bn, the WCED still faces a R3.8bn budget shortfall over the next three years, Walters said.

“Considering the growing budget shortfall and fiscal uncertainty, we have no alternative but to announce the reduction of the educator post allocation by 2,407 posts, effective 1 January 2025 – the start of the 2025 school year,” Walters said.

According to National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa), there are currently 37,135 teachers in the Western Cape and 34,728 posts are now proposed for 2025.

“We can now either run into the red financially or we can reluctantly reduce the number of educators in our system in order to afford our current wage bill,” Walters said.

He said that schools will receive their 2025 staff allocations on Friday. “We should never have been placed in this position and it is a fight we share with other sectors such as health.”

He said the Western Cape Government had already taken steps “to address the impact of the decision not to fully fund educator salaries, as well as raised the matter at the Council of Education Ministers’ meeting for urgent action”.

Naptosa Western Cape provincial CEO Riedwaan Ahmed said the union opposes the cuts.

He said the process “will inevitably result in the non-renewal of contracts” and some educators being classified as “excess”.

“This will have a negative impact on the education of every child in every classroom in this province.

“The ratio the WCED is projecting –– one teacher for every 36 learners — does not translate to the reality within our classrooms in the Western Cape. … While the WCED says they want to ensure education for every learner in every classroom, that has now certainly gone out the window,” said Ahmed.

“The contract posts are going to go first… The WCED says they are pro-poor and we’ve asked them not to touch the foundation phase. But we’ll see on Friday,” said Ahmed.