by David Maynier
Dr Elzahn Rinquest rightly states that “It is essential that we invest in our teachers and provide them with the support and resources they need to thrive”(“Honouring teachers for their dedication and impact”, Cape Argus, October 9).
As we celebrate Teachers’ month, it is even more important that we celebrate our teachers and the role they play in our children’s lives.
The national government’s decision to not fully fund the nationally-negotiated public sector wage agreement has indeed resulted in provincial educations departments having to make difficult, nearly impossible, tradeoffs.
It is not only in the Western Cape where we are faced with these challenges.
The reality is that all provinces face the same scenario for the next few financial years. In the Western Cape, we have taken a responsible approach – we have tried to maintain stability in the system while we continue to support learners. We cannot have a situation where learners sit at school without the necessary resources.
We have made the decision to protect vital learner support programmes which overwhelmingly support children in poorer communities, such as school feeding and learner transport.
We also protected the funding transferred to schools which allows them to pay for daily expenses like water and lights, and upon which no-fee schools are reliant
In other provinces, cuts are being made to school nutrition programmes, learner transport and transfers to schools. Other areas of cuts will lead to suppliers and municipalities not being paid. This will negatively impact not only the learners in those provinces, but also will lead to disastrous financial outcomes for the provincial Education departments.
The decision to reduce teaching posts was not taken lightly, and it will negatively affect our schools. Class sizes, and teacher workloads, will increase. This is the opposite of what we want to achieve in our schools.
In my recent engagements with principals and teachers at schools, I have listened to their concerns and anxieties around this process. They are rightly concerned about the impact that larger class sizes and constrained human resources will have on their daily work and their mental health.
Basic Education is a fundamental requirement for economic growth. We must ensure that our children leave school ready to contribute to the economy or qualify for higher education. And this requires stable and substantial funding of our provincial education departments. I have been clear that I will do as much as I can to fight for our teachers to ensure that we can provide quality education to all learners.
This is why we need to make a clear decision as a country that Basic Education is a real priority in South Africa. The Government of National Unity now has an opportunity to right past wrongs, to act decisively and to ensure that children receive quality education in every province in South Africa.
We will continue to work with other provinces through the Council of Education Ministers to outline the scale of the challenges facing provincial education departments, and to fight for our teachers.
If there was ever a time to show how valuable our teachers are, it is now.
* David Maynier, Education MEC.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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