As blame for the poor matric results is bandied about, schools are set to reopen with no hint of a resolution. Andy Duffy reports
State schools open their doors next week on the eve of a potentially bruising and bloody battle between the government, the provinces and their union allies over the floundering education system.
The dismal 1997 matric performance is seen in many quarters as merely a taste of what is to come in state education as the battle plays itself out.
The national Department of Education this week set itself firmly on course to push through permanent-staff cuts among teachers, and to take far more control of the cash-strapped provinces’ education management and spending.
Education officials believe the matric performance – all provinces bar Mpumalanga suffered a fall in pass rates – provides Minister of Education Sibusiso Bengu with the excuse to take a far more aggressive approach.
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu), one of the ruling party’s most powerful union allies, warns that a political split is looming with Bengu.
A crisis meeting concerning retrenchments, called earlier this week, between Bengu, the seven ANC education MECs and Sadtu only served to widen the gulf between the conflicting parties.
“The political polarisation between the unions and education authorities is growing,” says Sadtu general secretary Thulas Nxesi. “The government is hell-bent on reducing numbers. We’ll take them head on with this one.”
Sadtu had been hoping for rather more sympathy from Bengu, given the outrage concerning teacher retrenchments at the African National Congress’s conference in Mafikeng last month.
But Bengu’s officials say the department has spent far too long in the past three years worrying about labour relations. Spending on staff remains the critical problem facing state education.
Bengu attempted to equalise resources by redeploying staff or offering generous retrenchment packages. The policy, since scrapped, led to thousands of teachers leaving state schooling, and thousands more sitting in limbo on an unused redeployment list.
It also helped force up personnel costs, leaving little money for vital training or building of schools. Roughly half the R4,6- billion cost overrun facing the provinces this financial year is down to overspending on provincial education.
The provinces decided late last year to dump 20 000 temporary teachers in a desperate attempt to cut costs. But the goalposts shifted at Bengu’s crisis meeting this week, after provinces disclosed that they could find the money to rehire 17 000 temporary teachers in time for the new school year.
The trade-off is that they can retrench permanent staff through the year – a plan that has the national department’s blessing.
The about-turn triggered another skirmish with Sadtu, which dismissed it as a public relations stunt.
The plan is also a stark example of the confusion pervading state education – one of a litany of reasons forwarded for the poor 1997 matric showing.
Education officials in the Northern Province, which again posted the lowest pass rate at less than 32%, say there is no culture of teaching or learning in the province. Sadtu’s local representative blamed the lack of commitment among his own members. “We must go back to the drawing board,” he said.
But the national education department also pinned the blame squarely on mismanagement, from the provinces down to the principals.
“We have constantly focused on the need for labour peace,” said national Department of Education deputy director general Ihron Rensburg. “This has caused us to drift away from more basic and fundamental educational issues. The results are a reflection of a combination of problems that we have not got to the bottom of … All in the end contribute to a sense of absence of leadership.”
In his press conference on Thursday, Bengu detailed a string of “very basic education matters” that needed urgent attention, including overspending on staff and weak provincial performance.
“The fluidity on the top management of our political and administrative structures in a number of our provincial departments during 1997 was both cause and precipitant of an educational leadership instability resulting in flagging spirits and management difficulties,” he said.
The national department, constrained by the Constitution, has also been forced to sit back as provinces spent the bulk of their budgets on staff. Bengu has had no control over the management of the voluntary severance programme, and could only wince as the Northern Province and the North West province announced they had between them paid 18 principals to leave the service.
However, plans are now well-advanced to ring-fence a large slice of the provinces’ education budgets over the next three years to pay for key policy initiatives, such as training and the new Curriculum 2005. This would effectively bind the provinces into Bengu’s programme, and leave them no option but to axe staff.
Another national department proposal is to establish a R1-billion reserve, administered from Pretoria, to fund provincial and local education management training and quality control.
Bengu also used the press conference to warn poor performing teachers and education staff that they will face the sack.
“The government cannot continue to pay salaries to people who do not do their jobs,” he said. “That message must go out there to all the key role-players in teaching.”
Sadtu and the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) both voiced concerns about launching the new curriculum, which kicks off in grade one from next week.
Nxesi said teachers are just not ready; Naptosa said Bengu should consider slowing down.
“To run into a new curriculum when you don’t know what you did right or wrong under the old system is really playing with fire,” said representative Andrew Pyper.
Rensburg said the department remains committed to the new curriculum, although it is prepared to listen to Naptosa’s arguments about the phase-in.
Next week’s launch across all the provinces has only been made possible because the national department set up a R25-million emergency plan to provide training and learning materials. That initiative will run only for the first three months of the year.