We are doing everything to support our schools following major budget cuts imposed by national government

Statement by Bronagh Hammond: Director Communication, WCED

In 2023, the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) was dealt a devastating blow after the national government announced major budget cuts, which forced us to implement stringent cost containment measures.

We are currently facing an R870 million deficit in the 2024/25 financial year that needs to be absorbed to cover the cost of the increases in the nationally negotiated public sector wage agreement.

We issued a circular (Circular 0034/2023) on 21 November 2023, indicating that in order to maintain the number of permanent teaching posts in the system and stability in our schools, we needed to implement various cost containment measures.

We have consulted widely on the above with school governing body associations, principals’ associations, teachers’ unions and schools.

We agreed to delay the implementation by one term, to ensure our schools were ready to manage this process.

In preparation for implementation:

• Approximately 3 100 contract posts were converted to permanent posts between 1 January 2024 and 31 March 2024.
• Special vacancy lists were made available so that schools could ensure that appointments to fill vacant posts could be made before 1 April 2024.
• School Governing Bodies were urged to give recruitment processes their urgent attention, and the department made arrangements to expedite the administration around the filling of posts.

Many schools took the necessary steps to ensure that they had implemented the measures outlined in the circular by 31 March 2024.

The department is stepping in to support the schools that have not implemented the measures. In some instances, unexpected or late resignations of permanent staff have complicated matters. 

Our top priority now is to ensure that schools are supported, and we are working with schools to mitigate the risk by:

• supporting them to finalise their conversion processes;
• more regularly advertising vacancy lists;
• supporting them to speed up recruitment and selection processes, and expediting appointments where schools have finalised these processes; and
• extending the contracts of educators appointed in vacant substantive posts until 31 December 2024.

Despite the major budget cuts, we are doing everything we can to support our schools, and will continue to fight to deliver quality education to the learners in the Western Cape.