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By Thapelo Molefe
KwaZulu-Natal’s education system is in crisis due to severe budget cuts, leaving the department struggling to maintain schools and pay for basic services.
“Our problem is budget cuts,” said KZN head of education Nkosinathi Ngcobo.
“We are left with 7% to do other things that need to be done. That’s the problem.”
In an interview with Inside Education following an oversight visit by Parliament’s Portfolio Committee of Basic Education last week, Ngcobo shed light on the dire financial situation plaguing the province’s education system.
He said 93% of the department’s budget was allocated to employee compensation, leaving the department with little left to maintain schools, pay for utilities, or complete long-overdue infrastructure projects.
The department has been grappling with financial constraints since the 2020/2021 financial year, when budget cuts took effect.
Ngcobo said the situation worsened when the National Treasury failed to provide additional funding for wage increases, forcing the department to absorb the cost.
“It is also caused by the fact that when wages increased by a certain percentage, the National Treasury did not give us that increment last year, and they said we must take it from our budget,” he explained.
“That’s how our budget was affected, and that makes it difficult to maintain schools, to pay for electricity and water.”
The committee observed that the lack of budget has affected various aspects, including maintenance at schools, delayed infrastructure projects, learner transport and even the frequency of meals provided through the National Schools Nutrition Programme.
Since the 2021/2022 financial year, the department has reduced its staff establishment by 4,231 posts, with 8,690 positions remaining vacant as of December 2024.
Despite these reductions, the committee heard that the projected overspend for the provincial department for the 2025 year was R1.4 billion, as per January in-year monitoring against cost of employment (CoE), in the main.
The province’s Treasury told the committee that based on the provincial education’s budget submissions for 2025/26, it was estimated that there would be a shortfall of R2.7 billion on CoE.
Because CoE was protected, money would be moved from other line items to fund CoE.
Despite the financial strain, Ngcobo assured that employees’ salaries remain protected.
“We are not close to a point where employees won’t be getting paid. Salaries are protected,” he confirmed.
However, while employees can expect their salaries, service providers are not as fortunate. The department is struggling to meet payments to other service providers, further hampering its operations.
With financial pressures mounting, the department is looking to the National Treasury for relief.
“We will continue asking the Treasury to assist us,” Ngcobo said.
During the oversight visits to schools in the Ugu and Ilembe education districts, the committee came across several unfinished projects at schools where contractors had disappeared.
Acting committee chairperson Sedukanelo Tshepo Louw called on the national and provincial departments to follow up on these contractors.
“Consequence management is important. The department should do an investigation and should be able to tell us that they have opened a case against a contractor and we [are] going to recoup our money so that the schools can continue,” he said in a statement.
“The more we do not deal with those who take the public money and do not follow the right procedures, we will forever be in a disaster because we are giving money for free; it’s Christmas. There is no consequence management.”
He said that while the committee was aware of budget cuts, strategies could be implemented to respond to the current demands facing learners.
He also called on departments to review the quintile system for schools, as demographics have changed over the years, which in turn meant the quintile system should change.
INSIDE EDUCATION