Edwin Naidu
Ahead of World Teacher’s Day on 5 October, the lifeblood of the nation, indeed the world, educators in South Africa, are under the spotlight over the vagaries of the country’s tight budget.
Many have lost their posts due to budget cuts and responsibility for their engagements being passed from the National Treasury to provincial departments. Teacher jobs depend on what’s left in the government kitty, and the National Treasury’s budget cuts seem to be sacrificing educator posts.
This is bad news if South Africa hopes to improve the quality of educational outputs based on the most important person who will deliver these learnings – teachers.
As reported in Inside Education last month, teachers face a lack of professional development, poor working conditions, heavy workloads, and low salaries. There’s also a general lack of respect and recognition of their critical contribution to society.
This current challenge shows that they are not taken seriously.
According to the Democratic Alliance, the Treasury’s alleged failure to fund the 2023 wage agreement resulted in provinces absorbing significant budget shortfalls and putting jobs on the line.
As highlighted by MEC David Maynier, the Western Cape is facing an R3.8 billion budget shortfall over the next three years, even after implementing drastic cuts.
Other provinces are similarly impacted, with KwaZulu-Natal unable to afford over 11,000 educator posts and Gauteng forced to reduce learner transport and delay Early Childhood Development expansion.
As the world – South Africa included – prepares to celebrate teachers next month, something must be done to address this growing crisis.
The DA has called on the Treasury to address this funding shortfall immediately. They say it is unacceptable that provinces are forced to make difficult decisions because of a wage agreement negotiated at the national level but not fully funded.
Teachers should be given the job security needed to improve South Africa’s education system.
According to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, “Teachers are central to nurturing every country’s greatest resource: the minds of its people. Yet today, we face a dramatic shortage of teachers worldwide, and millions of teachers who lack the support, skills and continuing training they need to meet the demands of rapidly changing education systems.”
In the euphoria over the Government of National Unity, the lack of unity in the purpose of serving the nation better, especially where teachers are concerned, is disappointing.
The silence from the teacher bodies, like NAPTOSA and SADTU, over the culling of teachers due to a lack of government funds is deafening.
It beggars belief that President Cyril Ramaphosa would justify spending R44 million on eight imbizos while teacher jobs are being shed in their thousands.
Ramaphosa believed that this spending was justified so that the government was in touch with its citizens.
If Ramaphosa held an education imbizo, the president would have heard how the funding cutbacks hurt the economy (contributing to unemployment) and thwarted learning and teaching in South Africa.
But whether he would do something about it is up for debate.
World Teachers’ Day will celebrate how teachers transform education, reflect on the support they need to fully deploy their talent and vocation, and rethink the way ahead for the profession globally.
But it starts with treating teachers better than the current situation in South Africa, at least. After all, where would we be without our teachers?
Edwin Naidu is the editor of Inside Education.
