Next year will be the Eastern Cape education department's first year in an extended programme to deal with financial, staffing and infrastructure problems.
Next year will be the Eastern Cape education department's first year in an extended programme to deal with financial, staffing and infrastructure problems.
Education MEC Mandla Makhupula said this in East London on Tuesday 1 October, as he announced the department would cut more than 5 000 teaching posts. This leaves the province with 55 796 posts in 2014 compared to 60 820 this year.
Makhupula released the figures in East London on Tuesday, as he officially declared the 2014 Educator Post Basket. The number of posts for next year will be cut by 5 024.
In his statement Makhupula explained that the determination of next year’s post basket is based on the allocated budget for the category, compensation of employees, and affordability projections for the department's medium-term expenditure framework.
"This educator post basket comes at a projected cost implication of R18 694 316 000, while the non-educator basket of 7 080 is projected to have cost implications of R1 041 352 000," Makhupula said in his statement. "The department acknowledges and commits that 2014 will be a baseline year in a multi-term period to deal with inefficiencies in budget, personnel, rationalisation and infrastructure."
The MEC said, however that the department commits to retaining all teachers in the system and that all contracts for temporary educators currently in the system would be extended to March 2014.
The DA has expressed concern about the brutal cutting of educator posts for next year. Member of the provincial legislature Edmund van Vuuren, who is also the shadow MEC for Education in the province, said the impact of the department’s slashing of posts leaves the people of this province with continued dilemmas for 2014.
"Classrooms will again overflow with up to 125 learners per teacher in our disadvantaged schools. Vacant posts have still not been filled in our disadvantaged schools, despite promises to do so," said Van Vuuren.
He said the department still had not resolved the redeployment of 4 000 additional teachers in the province.
