MEC Makupula urges stakeholders to help education department

A marathon of court battles due to endeavour by the Eastern Cape Department of Education to ensure each learner has an educator to teach them through bringing in temporary teachers while persuading excess educators to accept redeployment, is the major strain in the department, MEC Mandla Makupula told education stakeholders recently.

The battles between the department and teacher unions range from either the unions defending its members who happened to be temporary or teachers in excess. Additionally, this has seen the department spending most of its time defending itself against fierce legal actions that are crippling service delivery to schools and the delivering on its core business, which is teaching and learning.

Addressing the packed Queenstown Indoor Sports centre during the schools rationalisation and re-alignment public hearings, Makupula did not shy away from the fact that according to him key issues leading to these battles are the redeployment of excess educators by the department to where their services are needed and the termination of temporary educators in line with the Peter Morkel model.

"Social mobility and inability of the schools to provide intellectual output has led to learner enrolment shrinking in schools. Additionally, since by law every education MEC is required to declare available post by September each year ahead of the opening of the school calendar.

"The declaration follows a process started by schools stating the available number of learners for the upcoming year. These reports are the basis for the determination of posts in each school, or the implementation of the post provision norms as they state where the teacher is needed, as such the department redeploy teachers accordingly", said Makupula.

Makupula also added that the department is currently paying twice for a single post as it is occupied by both an excess teacher and temporary teacher at the same time.

"If the Peter Morkel model is not working in our situation, such a systemic problem must be dealt with in the upcoming policy conference of the ruling party which will review amongst others these education policies", said Makupula.

The MEC also urged the education stakeholders to talk about education in their meetings. "Why can't chiefs talk about the state of education in their meetings and help map out lasting solutions to these permanent temporary educators. Can Queenstown church leaders play an active role in education to ensure that stability of the department is prioritised", he concluded.

Province

Share this page

Similar categories to explore