Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana has painted a bleak picture for KwaZulu-Natal, revealing that approximately 19,000 teaching posts in the province are at risk due to significant budget cuts.
Image: Armand Hough / Independent Newspapers
Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana has painted a bleak picture for KwaZulu-Natal, revealing that approximately 19,000 teaching posts in the province are at risk due to significant budget cuts.
The government facess significant challenges in funding frontline services, including paying essential workers such as teachers and doctors.
The recently rejected 2% VAT increase proposal, which was rejected by members of the GNU last month, was intended to provide relief from the financial strain.
"We have had challenges in funding frontline services, health education, and so on. About two weeks ago, there was a march to my offices by doctors.
"As we speak, there is the threat of losing 19,000 teachers in KZN. The Department of Correctional services. As we speak, there is a challenge even with their current employment levels to even pay the existing employees," Godongwana said in a press briefing last month.
The KZN Department of Education is also battling financially, with around 80% of its R65 billion budget allocated to salaries. This has resulted in important infrastructure projects being underfunded in the province.
Portfolio Committee on Basic Education, acting chairperson Sedukanelo Tshepo Louw, after coming across several unfished projects during an oversight visit in the province last week also called for an investigation into abandoned projects, emphasising the need for consequence management to prevent further financial mismanagement.
“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 going to recoup our money so that the schools can continue.
“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,” Louw said.
KwaZulu-Natal boasts the highest number of public schools in South Africa, with a remarkable total of 6,000 institutions. In addition, the province has achieved an impressive pass rate of 89.5% in the 2024 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations, highlighting its commitment to educational excellence.
However, the looming threat of potential job cuts has also raised concerns that the province's hard-won progress in improving its educational outcomes may be compromised.
Meanwhile, some unemployed teachers have also raised concerns following the minister's revelation about the potential job cuts, Noxolo Ntuli, a qualified teacher, said she was losing hope about ever getting a job in the education sector.
"As an unemployed graduate, it's very discouraging because now you think will I ever be employed as a teacher? KZN has many vacant posts, but they cannot hire because the department doesn't have funds to pay the teachers, we now rely on the Gauteng database for unemployed teachers and other provinces nakhona (even then) it's not guaranteed.
"It's difficult, sometimes I wish I did not choose this profession because I did not think that it will take so long to get a job, you even struggle to score those temporal or substitute posts, they mostly advertise SGB posts which pays as little as R5000 or less," Ntuli said.
mthobisi.nozulela@iol.co.za
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