MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

1 049 Less teachers for EC as pupils increase

By

Dear MyPE

The DA is disappointed with the announcement made by education MEC Mandla Makupula in the Bhisho legislature yesterday that the post provisioning for 2016 is 1 049 teachers less than in 2015. The logic behind this decision is questionable, as the learner-enrolment in the province as increased from 1,8 million in 2014 to 1,89 million in 2015.

The DA’s vision for the future is that education in the Eastern Cape must be improved, to enable more young South Africans to take advantage of opportunities. To achieve this, we need a system that is free from teacher shortages and over-crowded classrooms.

By reducing the post allocations by 1 049, it is doubtful that we will have a teacher in every classroom in 2016.

As at 16 July 2016, the total number of teachers vacancies were 2 800 and there were 2 438 unplaced additional teachers in the province.

We were hoping that the increase of R1-billion, from R20, 6-billion in 2015/16 to R21, 6-billion in 2016/17 would have allowed for the appointment of more teachers. However, it will alleviate the plight of the countless teachers in the system who have had to go without salaries for months at a time.

If all vacant posts in schools could be filled and teachers are paid on time, this would go a long way in improving education in the Eastern Cape.

The DA will fight relentlessly for the right of every learner to have a teacher in front of the class. Under a DA-government, no learner will be left without a teacher, and that is a promise.

Regards

Edmund van Vuuren

The following two tabs change content below.

Port Elizabethan

This author is a 'catch-all' for occasional articles and letters written to MyPE. The Author of each article can be found in the signature at the bottom of each individual article.