Archbishop Thabo Makgoba has lashed out at the government for damaging education by failing to provide provinces with enough money to cover public service salary increases.
Makgoba’s statement comes after Gauteng’s Education MEC Matome Chiloane announced that he will keep the jobs of about 3,400 teachers across the province by slashing various educational programmes amid a R4.5 billion budget deficit.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the department will see only 774 new teachers being employed in the province.
Currently, more than 45,000 entry level 1 teachers remain unemployed in the province.
Reacting to the new developments, Makgoba said government's failure to increase funding for provincial education departments to cover salary increases has thrown the education sector into a funding crisis.
“In the sea of unemployment in which we are drowning, cutting education budgets spells disaster. If we are to educate a modern workforce, we should be increasing investment in education, not reducing it,” he said.
Makgoba added the effects of unemployment, low wages and poor economic growth seen in African countries are shocking.
“In South Africa, a country blessed by natural resources, is blighted by the fact that nearly 40% of people earn less than R65 per day and 60% earn less than R125 a day.
“In Lesotho, poverty is more severe, with a staggering 27% of the population living on less than R33 a day, while more than half live on less than R56 per day.
“In Eswatini approximately 59% of people live below the national poverty line and 20.1% live in extreme poverty. In Namibia, approximately 27.8% of the population lives below the national poverty line. By any definition, great numbers of our people are chronically poor and vulnerable,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Western Cape Department of Education said it faces a R3.8 billion budget shortfall over the next three years and this will ultimately result into to 2,407 educator posts being cut as from January 2025.
sinenhlanhla.masilela@iol.co.za
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