Next week’s budget: posts for teachers in the spotlight

Thousands of teacher posts will be cut unless the Minister of Finance put aside billions of extra rand in next week’s budget. Illustration: Lisa Nelson

As the Minister of Finance’s Medium Term Budget Policy statement approaches next week, some provinces are hoping for funds to prevent or reverse cuts in teacher posts. But, others are less optimistic.

The implementation of the national wage agreement concluded in March 2023 has left provinces battling to pay increased public sector wages, with some announcing cuts in posts, notably for teachers. The two-year agreement was for a 7.5% increase in 2023/4 and an inflation-linked increase in 2024/5. Inflation is currently running at 3.8% a year.

The Western Cape has announced that 2,407 teacher posts will be cut in 2025. Education MEC David Maynier told GroundUp provincial education departments were talking to the National Treasury, preparing for the budget statement next week.

“The National Treasury indicated that it would NOT provide all of the extra funding required for the increases, despite the national government agreeing to the wage increases,” Maynier said.

As a result of the wage increase, Gauteng Department of Education faces a R4.5-billion budget shortfall, but the provincial education department has chosen to cut school transportation and nutrition programmes in order to save 3,400 teacher posts. The Gauteng education department declined to respond to GroundUp’s questions.

KwaZulu-Natal is reported to be at risk of losing 11,000 teacher posts due to a R4-billion budget shortfall. The KZN Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.

Mpumalanga will not be cutting teacher posts. Communications officer Jasper Zane told GroundUp that the education department “remains optimistic” for additional funding at the budget statement next week.

But in the Eastern Cape, the provincial department’s media liaison officer Malibongqe Mtima told GroundUp there is “no hope” that the medium term budget will allocate additional funding for education. Mtima said the provincial department was “implementing different strategies” to reduce the budget shortfall.

The remaining provincial education departments did not respond to requests for comments.

The National Treasury allocates funding to each province in the form of an “equitable share”, which is a lump sum that the provinces can decide how to use. Funding for each province is calculated based on needs, population size and poverty levels, among other things. Education is considered a high priority, with 48% of the equitable share based on the need for education.

On average, provinces spend 40% of their equitable share on education. The Western Cape spends 37%.

Provinces are expected to use this to cover public sector wage increases.

But the 2023-24 national budget was determined before the wage agreement, and as result the funding needed for the higher wages was not factored into the equitable share. Provinces were due to get additional funding for the wage increases during the Mid-Term Budget Policy Statement in October 2023, Maynier said, but this had not happened.

Driven by the wage agreement, the Western Cape Education Department increased the amount to be spent on salaries by 12% in the 2024/5 provincial budget. This included an increase in the number of teacher posts to match an increase in learners. But in spite of a drop in infrastructure spending, in August the department announced it would have to cut 2,407 teaching posts in the 2025 school year due to a “R3.8- billion budget shortfall over the next three years”.

Maynier said R3.8-billion is the difference between the cost of the wage increases and what the National Treasury is actually providing.

He said the National Treasury had said provincial governments must cover the wage increases from their existing budgets by cutting other services.

“In the Western Cape, we decided to protect vital learner support programmes which overwhelmingly support children in poorer communities, such as school feeding, learner transport, and funding for our schools’ daily expenses,” Maynier said.

The Western Cape government has decided to push for no increase in public sector wages for the next three financial years. In a statement on 17 October, the provincial cabinet said it would “support a 0% wage increase for public servants and politicians for the next three financial years, given South Africa’s severely constrained financial environment”.

The statement said the demand by public sector unions for a 12% increase was “unaffordable”.

Premier Alan Winde said “Continuous above-inflation wage increases are unaffordable. We are experiencing the impact of the 2023/24 salary adjustments on our core services. Essentially it is our residents, particularly the most vulnerable who are being hit the hardest by budget cuts we are having to make to fund the shortfall caused by the outcome of the last round of negotiations.”

Economics researcher Bianca Böhmer at Stellenbosch University said the national wage agreement in 2023 was merely a “correction” to the wage deflation during the Covid pandemic, but because the wage increases were unexpected, there was not sufficient funding for the increases.

“At some point, we just need to normalise increasing wages by inflation,” Böhmer said.

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