Education
Question by Hin S A Little
With reference to Circular 0034:
(1) What factors were taken into consideration when deciding the course of action contained in this circular;
(2) whether the impact of the decisions is in line with the pro-poor budget;
(3) what is his Department’s motivation for suggesting affected schools reintroduce the Teacher Recruitment Education and Preparation (TREP) Programme;
(4) who runs and oversees the Back on Track Programme?
1. My department has informed me of the following:
(1) The key factors affecting the decision included the R3 billion budget deficit over the next three years, as a result of budgets cuts by the national government and the decision by the national government not to fully fund the public sector wage increase, that we would need to cover by cutting expenditure across all programmes including Cost of Employment. The decision was also based on our desire to avoid cutting teaching posts to save costs, and to increase the number of permanently appointed teachers in schools.
(2) To ensure that no-fee schools were not negatively affected, all teaching posts could still be filled by the recruitment and selection process, or by the available conversion process, so that schools do not lose those teaching posts.
Where schools indicated that they need assistance in implementing these measures, we are assisting these schools by making temporary appointments to tide them over until they can fill vacant posts with a permanent appointment.
(3) We are not aware of any programme or process known as “Teacher Recruitment Education and Preparation”.
(4) The WCED.
