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The reduction in educator posts in the Western Cape will directly affect the rights of children to basic education, along with the quality of education they receive in government schools.

The DA-governed Western Cape Education Department has issued a notice to school Principals and governing bodies indicating that they will be cutting 2407 educator posts from January 2025.

Once again, it is the poorer and less-resourced schools that will feel these cuts the most as the parents will be unable to fund, through school fees, the appointment of additional educators.

Parents in increasingly dense, but middle to low income communities, are already struggling to get their children into schools with parents increasingly reporting that applications for access to schools for 2025 are being declined.

The notice to Principals, and school governing bodies, blames budget cuts but the Western Cape Premier is on record for slashing the provincial education and health budgets in order to fund the Western Cape Safety Plan.  

Premier Winde proudly claimed that he slashed these budgets in 2019, by R1 billion, in order to fund the learner law enforcement officers who operate as “LEAP Officers” under the management of the City of Cape Town.

The Western Cape Safety Plan, and the deployment of LEAP officers in the ten most dangerous SAPS police precincts, was intended to halve the murder rate in these precincts over a ten year period.

While safety of our communities is a top priority, across the country, the defunding of core provincial functions, of health and education, to fund the programme cannot be justified.  

More especially since the deployment of LEAP officers has not resulted in a reduction in the murder rate.  On the contrary the murder rate has increased in these crime precincts.

The Western Cape Government, and the Premier, must reassess their funding priorities.  

Reducing the funding of education, in order to dabble in policing, will have a long lasting impact on hundreds of thousands of children and ironically on the reduction of crime.

No child should be denied to right to quality education just because their parents cannot afford to fund a well-resourced school. 

Issued by Brett Herron, GOOD: Secretary General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament