More than 2 400 teacher posts only in the Western Cape are under threat of not being renewed when the contracts expire at the end of the year.
Instead of pleading with the President to reconsider signing the BELA Bill into law as is, Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube must surely be preoccupied with finding a solution to a looming crisis that threatens the future of thousands of children.
More than 2 400 teacher posts only in the Western Cape are under threat of not being renewed when the contracts expire at the end of the year.
This means there will be fewer teachers for already overcrowded classes when our children return to school in the new year.
The consequences of cutting teacher posts because there is not enough money to fund these vacancies will be dire, especially for a public education system that has long been saddled with a mountain of challenges.
The Western Cape is not the only province to be confronted with this dilemma, but perhaps finds itself in a more precarious position because of the increasing number of children from other provinces being enrolled in its schools. Nothing wrong with that – all of our children deserve the best education that they can receive.
But this will not be possible when again it’s the money that will have to determine whether that becomes a reality.
Already the gap between public and private schools is glaring, which the Bela Bill partly seeks to address.
The current situation should give Gwarube sleepless nights if she is to address the challenges choking the public education system.
She should be knocking on every government door, including the president’s looking for a solution. The sooner she grasps that the Bela Bill issue is done, the better. Her silence on grave matters such as cuts in teacher posts paints a worrying picture.
Equally the South African Democratic Teachers Union, an affiliate of ANC’s alliance partner Cosatu, must not point fingers only at the Western Cape Education Department, and shield the national government from taking accountability.
The so-called government of national unity is once again under test.
How it responds to issues like this will ultimately prove whether the whole thing is a marriage of convenience, as its critics have often claimed, or indeed a genuine attempt to fix the state of the country, including the education system.
Cape Times