{"id":815786,"date":"2025-03-07T15:58:31","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T13:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=815786"},"modified":"2025-03-07T15:58:37","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T13:58:37","slug":"19000-south-african-teachers-in-deep-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/815786\/19000-south-african-teachers-in-deep-trouble\/","title":{"rendered":"19,000 South African teachers in deep trouble"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana warned that 19,000 teaching jobs in Kwa-Zulu Natal (KZN) could be lost due to budget constraints if opposing parties squash measures like the VAT hike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Godongwana wants to use the VAT increase to fill a R60 billion shortfall in government finances, which is needed to cover key expenditures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These include civil servant salary increases, infrastructure projects, school feeding programs, early childhood development, and an extension of the R350 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Godongwana, the SRD grant alone requires an additional R35.2 billion in funding to be extended until March 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The finance minister warned that thousands of jobs in essential services are at risk if the government can’t find a way to increase revenue, adding to the realities South Africa faces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the week, Godongwana highlighted challenges facing the government in funding essential services such as education and healthcare as a motivation for a two percentage point VAT increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Godongwana warned that, due to the budget’s predicament, as many as 19,000 teaching jobs could be lost in KZN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation KwaZulu-Natal spokesperson, Thirona Moodley, called the warning a pressure tactic, although the education system is still under strain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s premature for him to say that at this point. It\u2019s like he is pressuring society to accept the [two percentage point] point VAT hike; otherwise, there will be a loss of 19,000 jobs in KwaZulu-Natal alone,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moodley called on the government to look at preventing wasteful expenditure and apply consequence management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in KwaZulu-Natal has raised concerns about potential job losses and accused Minister Godongwana of jeopardising the province’s education system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the 2025\/26 financial year, the Department of Education received an allocation of R65.8 billion, which is only a 4.5% increase from the previous year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

DA MPL Sakhile Mngadi stated that this increment is insufficient to cover rising costs. In response, the DA plans to introduce a new Schools Evaluation Authority Bill to address the crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A crisis <\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
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PSA KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Manager Mlungisi Ndlovu<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The Public Servants Association (PSA) in KwaZulu-Natal has strongly opposed<\/a><\/strong> the government’s plan to cut thousands of teaching jobs in the province. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to PSA KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Manager, Mlungisi Ndlovu, this decision is “reckless” given that the province has over 2.6 million learners and more than 90,000 educators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ndlovu argues that the main issue is the government’s austerity measures, which have severely impacted education funding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In the past three financial years, the Department of Education has lost about R27 billion due to annual budget cuts of R6 billion,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These cuts have led to thousands of unfilled support positions, with between 4,000 and 6,000 office-based jobs remaining vacant. As a result, many schools struggle to maintain basic operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adding to the crisis, Ndlovu pointed out that KwaZulu-Natal has about 6,000 schools, and 86% of them are no-fee schools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If the government is unable to fund them, it creates a crisis\u2014a national crisis that needs urgent attention,” he said. The PSA has called for immediate dialogue with education authorities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have said to the Premier of KwaZulu-Natal and the MEC of Education that they must engage with us because most schools are already struggling,” Ndlovu explained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also highlighted the inequality in the system. “The sad part is that most government leaders, particularly politicians, send their children to expensive private schools.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ndlovu emphasised that the education department requires over R2 billion just to sustain operations, with more than R50 billion already allocated to salaries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Most essential services are not being taken care of,” he warned. The situation extends beyond salaries\u2014issues like school nutrition programs and infrastructure funding also need urgent attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have a crisis,” Ndlovu warned. “We are sitting on a ticking time bomb where over 19,000 of our educators could lose their jobs.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana warned that 19,000 teaching jobs could be lost due to budget constraints.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":815788,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1329,9335,18193,17521,853],"class_list":["post-815786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-da","tag-department-of-education","tag-kwa-zulu-natal","tag-psa","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":815834,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815786\/revisions\/815834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}