/ 6 September 1996

Church schools hit hard by cut

Catholic schools in Gauteng are outraged by a 30% retrospective subsidy cut, reports Max Gebhardt

INDEPENDENT Catholic church schools which cater for thousands of disadvantaged black schoolchildren will be the first to suffer in the wake of cutbacks in their subsidies by the Gauteng Education Department.

Religious and independent schools in Gauteng have been plunged into a crisis by the province’s Education Department’s sudden announcement of a retrospective 30% cut in their subsidies.

Since schools get paid their subsidies in four stages during the year, the two remaining pay-outs in September and December will be down-scaled accordingly.

Six independent Catholic schools are under threat of closure unless a rapid solution can be found to their financial woes.

Although the 30% cut remains the same for all schools, the actual value of the cut varies according to the size of schools’ individual budgets. Immaculata High School in Diepkloof, Soweto, for example, will lose R605 000 in the cut, while the Holy Family Convent in Parktown will lose R250 000.

The Gauteng’s Catholic Education Negotiating Team (Cent) said it had been led to understand an adequate notice of a subsidy cut would be given, to allow schools to plan accordingly. “Coming as it does in the third quarter of the academic year, this makes it almost impossible for schools to adjust their budgets. With a further cut looming in 1997, many schools which serve the poorer black communities will be unlikely to survive,” a Cent spokesman said.

The schools that are the least likely to survive are those which provide education to black children from disadvantaged communities whose parents cannot afford to pay drastically increased fees. At least four schools in Soweto are under threat of closure within the next year or two.

Many of these Catholic schools rely heavily on their subsidies from the Gauteng Education Department, in order to make them more accessible to the black community. Cent feels the Gauteng provincial government has no clear policy and has made no attempt to distinguish between elite schools, like St John’s College or Roedean in Johannesburg which can better absorb this cut and genuinely deserving cases.

Gauteng MEC for Education Mary Metcalf contends that her department has suffered a budget cut for the 1995/96 financial year.

The problem, Metcalf argues, is there are a greater number of private schools, both church and independent, competing for a slice from a shrinking pie.

There are short-term options available to private schools facing the crunch this year, according to Metcalf.

“They can take their first subsidy for next year this year, or they can convert to a state school. The legal mechanisms are in place for them to change into a public school at their request.”

But, she says: “If private schools do want to become a public school … the ethos of the school will have to be determined by the community. They cannot retain their Catholic ethos unless it is the democratic choice of the community.”

Cent claims, however, that the Education Department has already turned down one such request on the grounds that it does not have sufficient funds.

“It is possible that a more satisfactory settlement could be worked out in time,” a Cent spokesman said, “but for many of our schools, there is no time.” ‘For many of our schools, there is no time’