Funding shortfalls in provincial education could derail more than just the new school curriculum, reports Ann Eveleth
THE Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel, walked into a meeting last Friday with little good news for the provincial education and finance leaders who confronted him. They had hoped that Manuel could cover the spiralling cash shortfalls threatening their ability to transform schools; they wanted him to augment the R40-billion allocated to education.
The Minister of Education, Sibusiso Bengu, is powerless to help. The new Constitution ensures that – in any event his ministry was caught flatfooted when the crisis broke.
Manuel, however, could offer little to meet the provincial needs. As his representative explained this week: “The minister can’t just go back and get more money from the Treasury. There isn’t actually a pool of money to take from.”
It was the first time that Manuel had met colleagues in charge of educating South Africa’s 12-million pupils. “We know nothing about financial problems in the provinces unless they specifically inform us,” said Manuel’s representative, Lincoln Mali. “In terms of the new budget allocation system put in place this financial year we are out of the loop when it comes to provincial funding.”
Friday’s meeting left the ministry no better briefed. Manuel was reported to have put the funding shortfall at R2-billion, but no one, including his office, was prepared to agree with that figure.
Others said the true extent of the shortfall will only be known following a special investigation by a new national task team.
The education ministry’s limited grasp of the provinces’ funding problems is a critical obstacle to the government’s plan to transform education. Introducing Curriculum 2005, a key element, has been slowed by Bengu’s discovery last month that the provinces simply do not have the cash to implement the estimated R400-million a year programme.
The voluntary severance programme has also been halted after provinces let go thousands of experienced teachers and racked up huge retrenchment costs in the process.
The root of the ministry’s lack of information is the provincial fiscal autonomy introduced under the new Constitution. Manuel’s ministry now hands out annual lump sums to provincial governments, who decide independently how to spend the share.
While provinces jealously guard their new-found autonomy, they are expected to pay staff and implement “transformational programmes” mapped out at national level from their own budgets.
The national education human resources director, Duncan Hindle, said provinces spend between 72% and 90% of their budgets on staff.
The implications are enormous: “The biggest problem relates to the lack of funds for other projects,” Mali said. “If 90% or more is spent on wage costs, there isn’t much left for Curriculum 2005, Adult Basic Education and Training, Early Childhood Development, special needs, educational broadcasting and the use of new technology.”
Mali said some provinces might have to delay or drop such programmes. “Yet without these programmes, education will remain the same as it was in the past,” he said.
The provinces are playing down any talk of crisis, saying they are looking to belt-tightening and national assistance for rescue.
Gauteng’s education MEC, Mary Metcalfe, said the national programmes were “non-negotiable” but conceded there could be “quite serious cuts” if the new task team failed to find solutions.
She argued that provinces were also out of the loop when it came to wage negotiations: “There has been a continuous disjuncture over the past three years between the money available for salaries and the labour agreements reached at national level.
“We have to tighten the mandating procedures between provincial and national departments and we need a more rapid implementation of the current agreed pupil-teacher ratios. We actually have too many people employed.”
Manuel’s office is not optimistic about finding more money. Off-shore funding “would put us over the 4% budget deficit goal required by the Growth, Employment and Redistribution plan [Gear]”, said his representative.
“Outside of increasing the budget, compulsory teacher retrenchments are one of the few options available,” Hindle said.
But the unions have drawn a line in the sand when it comes to dismissals. The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union national negotiator, John Maluleke, said the union would oppose any talk of retrenchments. “Everyone assumes we have too many teachers, but we in the classroom know that is not true,” he said.