Western Cape schools feel the squeeze after cuts in teacher posts

The Western Cape Education Department cut roughly 2,400 teaching posts in response to budget shortfalls which it blames on National Treasury. Illustration: Lisa Nelson

On 15 January, schools in the Western Cape reopened with fewer teachers than in 2024, forcing the remaining staff to manage more learners. The provincial education department cut roughly 2,400 teaching posts in response to budget shortfalls it blames on National Treasury.

GroundUp spoke to principals and teachers at four government schools in order to find out how it has affected them.

More or bigger classes

The principal of one Cape Town primary school said that last year they were notified by the department that they needed to shed three teacher posts by 1 January. As a result, it was decided that classes for the grade threes would have to be combined: rather than having three classes, each with 36 students, educators would need to take on two classes of 54.

The principal retired just before the start of the new school year and she is unsure about how things have played out, but she is worried.

“There’s no way you can deliver quality education to 54 children and still maintain your sanity,” she told GroundUp. “You can’t speak to children with a little song in your voice, and not be angered by 54 children [in one class]”.

At a high school in a more middle-class area, a teacher told GroundUp that the department had removed four posts at the school. Rather than combining lessons, the school responded by allocating each teacher more classes (without any additional compensation).

“My teaching load has increased substantially from last year,” he said. “I’ve got to prepare seven lessons tomorrow instead of four, so the amount of in-depth preparation you do is that much less … The other thing is you’ve now got more exhausted teachers … Everybody’s workload has increased”.

At a third high school, in a high-crime area, the principal told GroundUp that only one post had been dropped and the school managed to absorb the loss without major disruptions.

At the final school, three posts were cut, according to the principal. This caused initial concern, since there were already an average of 43 students in each class.

The school was subsequently given an additional three “growth posts” after the principal agreed to accept a large batch of new learners who hadn’t yet been placed. The additional students never turned up, so the school has been left with the same teacher-student ratio as last year.

The new students may still arrive later in the year, the principal cautioned, which would then leave the school with a higher burden than in 2024.

How posts to cut were chosen

At the end of August, schools were notified about how many posts they needed to reduce for the 2025 year. It was then up to the schools to decide which specific posts to cut (though they received guidance from the province/district).

At one school, the principal made the decision on the basis of curriculum needs; posts were removed in subjects that had more teachers and fewer students.

Activist group Equal Education raised concerns about how this was affecting schools. Aluyolo Mbeki and Mahfouz Raffee, who work at the organisation, told GroundUp: “There have been reports about schools no longer offering subjects like maths, physical science and accounting to learners, because posts for these low-uptake subjects have been removed”.

At a Cape Town primary school, the principal explained that they couldn’t cut posts on the basis of curriculum needs as they don’t have course-based educators. A grade 1 teacher teaches all subjects for the grade. Instead, the school used the principle of “last in, first out” – the most recently hired teachers had their posts cut.

Schools can remove teachers in three ways:

• by not renewing the contracts of teachers hired on a temporary basis after 31 December 2024. These teachers can apply for vacant posts;


• by declaring a permanent teacher post as being “in excess”; the teacher can then be reassigned to another school, where a vacancy has opened, for instance, where a teacher resigned;


• by not refilling the post of a teacher voluntarily leaving at the end of the year.

Why posts were cut

According to the Western Cape Education Department, National Treasury failed to fully fund a wage increase that it had agreed to in 2023. This contributed to the department facing a multi-billion rand budget shortfall, which it says forced its hand.

Kerry Mauchline, spokesperson for the education MEC, told GroundUp, “Ordinarily, the National Treasury would fund the wage increase, as it is negotiated by the national government. In this instance, despite the national government agreeing to an increase, the funding for the full cost of the increase was not provided”.

Mauchlin says this caused “massive budget shortfalls for all provincial education departments”.

Last year, the Gauteng education department stated that it would slash spending on nutritional programmes and scholar transport for 2025.

[[Meanwhile, unions claimed earlier this month that the KwaZulu-Natal education department had failed to provide schools with their full norms and standards allocations for 2024 (this is used to cover costs like stationary, books, municipal services and maintenance). GroundUp also reported in November that the KwaZulu-Natal department was failing to fund certain Early Childhood Development centres.

According to Mauchlin, “Every province will have to find a way to foot the enormous cost of the nationally negotiated wage agreement. In the Western Cape, we have made the decision to reduce the number of teaching posts to cover the shortfall, and to protect spending that favours learners in poor communities such as school nutrition, learner transport and school Norms and Standards funding”.

“How provinces cover the shortfall, if they are even able to do so, will vary,” she said. “But every option we choose will have a negative impact on our children’s futures.”

Some argue that the Western Cape could have done more to avoid making dramatic cuts in education financing. Equal Education’s Mbeki and Raffee said, “The Western Cape allocates just 44.2% of its revenue from the Provincial Equitable Share to education, relative to a national average of 47.3%. If the Western Cape spent similarly to its counterparts, it would have been able to increase its education budget by almost R2bn last year.”

In response, Mauchlin said, “It is not true to say that our province does not prioritise education. On the contrary, we have added R6.39bn to the education baseline over the past three financial years, and have the largest departmental budget in the provincial government.”