KZN Department of Education unable to fill 2000 new posts as it feels the pinch of a massive budget cut – IOL

Durban - MEC for Education in KwaZulu-Natal, Kwazi Mshengu, says that his department will not be able to fill 2000 teaching posts for the 2022 academic year due to severe budget cuts.

Mshengu said the department will retain its staff contingent of 90 057 educators currently in the system.

Speaking during a briefing in Umbilo on Friday, he said the Department of Education suffered a budget cut of R6.343 billion with a possiblity of further cuts.

He said there would be a severe impact of these budget cuts on the quest to bring about equal, quality and relevant education for all."

Mshengu said despite a number of programmes and projects around building education in the province, the massive budget cuts restricted them.

"The KZN province has about 6000 schools, with 72% of them being in rural and township areas where poor socio-economic conditions are still militating against the historically disadvantaged people.

"Whilst the Department received 40% of the provincial equitable share, the reality is that 83% of its budget goes to the salaries of employees and the situation becomes worse when conditional grants are removed. In essence, the department is always left with a tiny budget to run other necessary projects/programmes such as infrastructure, learner transport, ICT rollout and payment of Norms and Standards to schools, which is below the national threshold," Mshengu said.

He said that the impact of the budget cuts would be severely felt in the classroom.

The cuts mean the department cannot fill the necessary 2000 posts for educators, it cannot replace teachers who go on leave, it impacts of the learner-teacher ratio - doubling teacher loads, means more congestion in classrooms and also impacts on project infrastructure and halts tenders.

Mshengu said it also meant that the department will have to retrench 6114 workers of whom 2300 are educators.

"Since the beginning of this financial year, the department has been engaged on a painstaking process with all relevant stakeholders to avert a catastrophic situation of retrenchment and the collapse of the education system.

"The DoE presented a blow-by-blow impact of these budget cuts to the Provincial Executive Council over several meetings. We were strengthened by the decision of the Executive Council to take this matter as a matter of the whole provincial government as opposed to leaving it with DoE only," Mshengu said.

He said KZN Premier Sihle Zikalala has been at the forefront of engaging the National Treasury, including raising the matter with the Presidency.

"Whilst there is nothing concrete yet from the National Treasury in terms of additional funding, we are pleased that the Provincial Executive Council has decided that the Department of Education must retain the existing staff establishment whilst we continue to sources more funding for the department," he said.

"We are grateful to the leadership of the Premier and the support of all Members of the Executive Council which has made it possible to avert the disastrous situation of retrenchments. We are, however, not completely out of the woods.

We still need to engage further to avoiding the possible future budget cuts. We also want to thank the unions and the SGBs for the work they have also done in the management of the sector throughout this painful period. Together we can build a resilient sector," the MEC said.

IOL

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KZN Department of Education unable to fill 2000 new posts as it feels the pinch of a massive budget cut - IOL