Education
- Whether there are any schools in quintile 4 and quintile 5 that are struggling to pay the salaries for governing body teachers; if so, (a) what are the details of each school and (b) what intervention measures have been taken to support such struggling schools;
- whether there are any schools, especially in quintile 4 and quintile 5, that (a) terminated contracts of governing body teachers or (b) could not pay them full salaries during the lockdown period; if so, (i) what are the relevant details and (ii) what impact did it have on teaching and learning at those schools?
- (1) (a) In terms of sections 20(4) and (5) of the SASA the SGB may employ additional staff to the establishment of the school. In terms of section 20(10) of the SASA the State is not liable for any act or omission by the public school relating to its contractual responsibility as the employer in respect of staff employed in terms of subsections (4) and (5).
SGBs are thus not required to report the non-payment of SGB-appointed staff or the termination of contracts to the Department. While the Department is certainly aware that many of our schools have had to terminate contracts, largely as a result of the parents not paying school fees, we do not have official statistics on it.
(b) The Department has consistently encouraged parents to try to pay school fees this year. It is understandable that many parents could have had a loss of income during the lockdown and thus could not pay school fees. Parents who have been laid off or had contracts cancelled, and/or who are unemployed can apply for fee exemption.
It is important that parents do fill in the required forms if they qualify, as these forms are then sent to the WCED by schools when applying for fee compensation.
The Department has also been informed that the national government intends to make funds available to provide relief to schools struggling to pay their SGB-appointed staff this year. However, full details of this support have not yet been supplied to the Department.
(2)
- As noted above, SGBs are not required to report non-payment, delayed payment or termination of contracts of SGB-appointed teachers to the Department.
- N/A
- The WCED gives each school enough posts based on the post provisioning model to ensure that no class size should be higher than 40, which is 40 learners per teacher. In many cases SGBs then decide, after consulting with the parents, to bring class sizes down by employing additional SGB teachers.
- Due to Covid-19, all schools had to manage their timetables according to the number of educators at school and the space available – so that the relevant health and safety protocols are followed.
- This has had an impact on teaching and learning as some grades are not necessarily at school every day. So it would be difficult to also assess the impact of the loss of SGB posts on teaching and learning, when we are not operating under normal circumstances. Schools had to manage these timetables accordingly.
