Govt urged to find other cost-cutting measures instead of axing teacher posts
The Western Cape Education Crisis Committee, comprising of teachers, unions and civil society organisations, is unhappy with budget cuts in the education sector.
Small group from the Western Cape Education Crisis Committee, picketing outside the Western Cape Education Department offices in the Cape Town CBD. Picture: Ntuthuzelo Nene/ Eyewitness News.
CAPE TOWN - The Western Cape Education Crisis Committee is calling on the government to find other cost-serving measures instead of cutting teaching posts.
The movement comprising teachers, unions and civil society organisations is unhappy with budget cuts in the education sector.
Last month, Education MEC David Maynier announced more than 2,400 contract teacher posts would be cut next year due to a budget shortfall of 3.8 billion Rand over the next three financial years.
READ: Decision to reduce WC teaching posts not taken lightly, says MEC Maynier
On Monday, a small group of protestors gathered in front of the provincial education department brandishing placards and chanting: "No to budget cuts" and "Education is a human right".
One of the protestors, a senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town's School of Education, Dr Yunus Omar, told Eyewitness News that job cuts in the education sector were not the answer.
"We call on the provincial education department to rethink this, to come back with humility and say we are going to talk to people, instead of making policies for people, make policy with people. But the alternative is that we've got to think about our economic system, the economic system at the moment is causing harsher inequalities on people."