According to media reports, the head of parliament’s portfolio committee on basic education has warned that a schooling catastrophe is looming due to budget cuts forced on provincial education departments.

The committee chair, Joy Maimela, on Friday said all provinces would be invited to give a detailed presentation to the committee on how the budget cuts were affecting them and to consider budget review mechanisms that exist in the Public Finance Management Act.

Teaching and learning will be affected. The government has agreed to a 7,5% wage increase for public servants for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years but didn't increase provincial budgets accordingly. Now provinces are making billions of rands of cuts to adjust, affecting teaching posts, early childhood development programmes and scholar transport.

The Western Cape announced it will have to cut 2,400 teaching posts at the end of the year. Gauteng, with its large number of pupils, also indicated that it may have to cut costs in the same areas. KwaZulu-Natal said this week it may be unable to pay municipal accounts for schools and service providers within the stipulated 30 days due to R4bn shortfall.

Education MEC Sipho Hlomuka said implementing the wage agreement will cost the department R2,7bn. It costs the department R194m a month to fund the compensation of employees, which depletes the operational budget. He said KZN already has 8 242 unaffordable vacant posts and the 7,5% pay hike, meant another 2 716 posts could not be funded. That means the province will be short of 11 000 teachers.

Procurement of learner support material, the introduction of enhanced curriculum to ensure that learners are equipped with the skills of the 21st century, will be impossible when teachers with the relevant skills cannot be hired because of budget cuts.

Under these catastrophic circumstances, it looks like the minister of basic education, Nosiviwe Gwarube, has to make a serious review of the steep mountains she has to climb, a total reassessment of her priorities and have a serious talk with the minister of finance and Treasury to demand an enabling budget that will cover infrastructure development and maintenance and eradication of pit toilets and all the teacher/learner core problems that need urgent attention.

Let us hope she will be given the support she needs to be able to fulfill her vision for the long-suffering basic education department.

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