Eastern Cape Education MEC Mandla Makupula has declared the number of teaching posts for 2014 at 55 796.
This is a significant cut from the 60 850 posts declared for 2013.
Speaking in East London on Tuesday, MEC Makupula said the department is by no means going to retrench any teachers.
He says the department is currently in the process of speeding up the movement of excess teachers and convincing older and ill teachers who are still in the department's payroll to retire.
Here is a transcript of the speech he delivered:
Yesterday, on the 30 September 2013, I was, once again, legislatively compelled to declare the teacher post establishment for the year 2014.
As most of you are aware, this is an annual exercise compelled by law and its concomitant mandates, that:
"The Member of the Executive Council responsible for Education in the province must determine the educator post establishment of the provincial department of education in terms of section 5(1) (B) OF THE ACT, 1998 (Act No. 76 of 1998) in accordance with any applicable policy made in terms of the National Education Policy Act of 1996."
CONSULTATION
The legislation further commands that the formal act of declaration must be preceded by a consultation process with teacher unions and School Governing Body (SGB) Associations.
This year, I have sought to manage this process through a highly structured mechanism driven by a management plan that allocated timeframes and responsibilities to all the required steps/activities ahead of declaration. These included formal information sharing sessions with parties represented in the chamber and SGB Associations.
Looking ahead to future declarations, the department dispatched a two (2) men task team to the province of KwaZulu Natal, in order to examine the feasibility of introducing a three (3) year multi-term agreement. This would be meant "to ensure that a climate of certainty and stability with minimum disruptions to quality teaching and learning and effective administration of schools."
The declaration of the 2014 PPN also took into consideration the onset of a new term of government and the 2014//15 - 2016/17 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF). This will inevitably be accompanied by a re-prioritization of government programmes and areas of focus.
I am taking this annual exercise within the department that remains untransformed:
" this is reflected by systemic, structural, political and administrative challenges.
" A system that reflects by and large the disjuncture or Haves and Have Nots.
" A system that largely still reflects homeland features and privileged sections of the province.
In this context you still have to distribute your limited resources to widely spread small and unviable schools.
This daunting challenge of transforming these above persisting challenges is not going to happen overnight. Rather it will take tremendous efforts by all education stakeholders and the community at large working hand in glove to bring about meaningful changes to public education. I therefore make a clarion call to all citizens and education stakeholders to join hands with me in addressing all the challenges in this sector. The following are therefore immediate realities that must be concretely dealt with:
MOVEMENT OF EXCESS EDUCATORS
A key variable that must be taken into consideration when I declare a new post basket is the necessity of our province, in line with the rest of the country, to inculcate a culture of seamless placement of all teachers in excess to where there are vacancies matching their profiles. The department and its social partners are compelled by both national and provincial imperatives to reach a necessary level of maturity to implement this important policy directive, and thus lessen the burden on the department's budget.Inevitably, failure to move educators in excess compromises learners constitutional right to basic education, especially in those cases where the distribution model results in high numbers of vacancies.
DECREASING LEARNER NUMBERS
All institutions of government utilize formal rational instruments in the determination of properly weighted budgetary allocation. For the education department, learner numbers are a crucial variable in determining affordability. The data provided by both the national census and that collated internally by the Education Management Information System (EMIS), suggests that there has been a consistent downward spiral in the total number of school going learners in the province. This must necessarily have a direct bearing on the post basket allocation.
NON EDUCATOR POST BASKET
The history of previous post declaration have been characterized by focus on the educator component of the system, this was a conscious decision driven by prevailing resource restraints. The current post declaration acknowledges the new service delivery model that places the learner at the centre of learning and teaching effort.
CONCLUSION
" The determination of next year's post basket is based on the allocated budget for Compensation of Employees and affordability projections for the MTEF period;
" This educator post basket comes at a projected cost implications of R18 694 316 000;
" The department declared a non-educator basket of 7, 080 at a projected cost implication of R1 041 352 000;
" The department acknowledges and commits that 2014 will be a baseline year in a multi-term period to deal with inefficiencies in budget, personnel, rationalization and infrastructure;
" The department commits to retain all teachers in the system; all contracts for temporary educators currently in the system will be extended to March 2014;
" The department commits to the implementation of Collective Agreement No2 of 2003 and the 6 point plan geared at managing additional educators:
Reskilling of serving educators;
Rationalization of schools;
Deployment of additional educators;
Management and monitoring of retirement, early retirement, Pillir cases and natural attrition
