The Western Cape Government (WCG) has called on teacher unions to fight alongside it rather than against it following the announcement that more than 2 000 teachers are set to lose their jobs, Cape {town} Etc reports.
Also read: Teacher unions fight Western Cape’s plan to cut 2 400 teaching jobs
‘Striking will not change the fact that we are being short-changed by the national government, which only provided 64% of the cost of the wage agreement negotiated nationally with unions, leaving the province to fund the remaining 36%,’ the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) said in a recent statement.
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‘The situation is critical. If we do not take drastic action to cover the massive shortfall, we compromise our ability to pay for our bills, which includes the salaries of teachers.’
The department noted that ‘the only way’ it could close the finance gap would be to cut ‘critical support’ to school in poorer communities such as school feeding, learner transport, and payments to schools for daily expenses.
The response follows announcements by two teacher unions who rejected the WCED’s plan to cut 2 400 teaching jobs due to a budget shortfall. Both the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) in the Western Cape and the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) lodged disputes against the department.
Naptosa threatened strike action.
‘SADTU in the Western Cape rejects, with the contempt it deserves, the Western Cape Education Department’s (WCED) proposal to reduce the 2025 basket of educator posts,’ the organisation said in a statement.
SADTU proposed that the WCED halts the Back on Track programme for 2025 because it ‘only benefits a fraction of the learners who [have] experienced learning losses during the Covid-19 lockdown period’.
However, the WCED argues that the #BackOnTrack programme is crucial to reversing learning losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as ‘regular class time on its own has not been enough to improve their learning outcomes’.
‘Nearly a third of our #BackOnTrack expenditure is on books for all Foundation Phase learners, and training their teachers to teach reading effectively. Early-grade literacy is a critical priority for our learners, so cutting support in this area would further aggravate an already serious situation,’ it added.
‘Another large portion of the #BackOnTrack budget is the revision support to our Grade 12 learners as they prepare for their final matric exams. Our learners in poor communities are especially reliant on this support, and cutting it would be a devastating blow to our matrics.’
The department also stated that cutting systemic testing would mean losing a key tool for checking if educational interventions are working.
‘We have not taken the decision to reduce the number of teaching posts lightly, and we are doing everything we can to fight for our teachers,’ it said.
‘We hope that teachers’ unions will choose to fight alongside us, rather than against us.’
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