Statement by MEC for Education, Cameron Dugmore

THE Western Cape Education Department (WCED) is looking at creative ways of using additional posts to enhance education next year, especially in the province’s poorest schools.

The WCED will add 292 posts to the total number of teaching posts, to meet new demands and to provide additional support to poorer schools.

The WCED allocates posts to schools every year according to a formula used nationally to determine the number of posts that should be allocated to each school.

The department is currently informing schools about the allocations, following consultations with teacher unions and associations representing principals and school governing bodies.

The WCED will increase the total number of teaching posts in the Western Cape in 2006 from 30 080 to 30 372, an increase of 292.

As is the case every year, some schools will find that they will gain teachers while others will lose teachers, mainly because of changes in learner numbers. Other reasons for changes in staff establishments include curriculum changes and special efforts to support our poorest schools.

Learner numbers appear to have stabilised across the system, at around 921,000 learners in Grades 1 to 12. This means that we will be able to use our extra posts more creatively to provide additional support where it is needed the most.

We intend using the additional posts as follows:

• We will use 51 of the additional 292 posts to enlarge the existing basket of posts, and will use the remaining 240 posts to ensure curriculum redress and to support strategic programmes.
• For example, we will allocate 50 posts to our Dinaledi schools, where we focus on trying to improve Mathematics results.
• We plan to allocate 21 posts to other focus schools, to support subjects in Arts and Culture, Engineering, Agriculture and Business Management.
• We are considering allocating 70 additional posts to our Education Management and Development Centres (EMDCs) in each district, to provide additional support to clusters of schools.
• Educators holding these posts could include lead teachers for subjects such as Mathematics or Science, education project managers, itinerant isiXhosa teachers and experienced school managers who could provide support for principals.
• We are looking at allocating the equivalent of about 100 posts to employ class aids, to assist Foundation Phase teachers in Grades 1 to 3.

The WCED’s recent studies Grade 3 learners in numeracy and literacy have shown that only about a third of learners can perform at Grade 3 levels. The class aids would assist Foundation Phase teachers in poor schools in their efforts to improve numeracy and literacy results. Funding for the 100 posts could provide resources for between 300 and 450 class aids.

Meanwhile, the overall basket of posts will include the 458 ad hoc posts we provided last year.

Some of these posts will go to small, combined schools offering secondary education. We will use most of these posts to improve the teacher: learner ratio where this support is needed the most.

These are all important transformation initiatives. We are looking forward to an exciting year. Our resources are still limited, but by working smarter and harder, we will make an important difference to education delivery in 2006.

For enquiries, contact Gert Witbooi on 082 550 3938.