South African education unions, the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation (Naptosa) and the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU), responded on Monday to the Western Cape Department of Education (WCDE) plans to cut the number of education workers by more than 2,400 by 2025.
Both unions say that they will ballot for strike action if the decision is not overturned.
WCDE said the job cuts are due to a budget crisis but claimed they would happen with ‘natural wastage like teachers retiring rather than sackings’.
The unions warn that they do not believe that the plans don’t include sackings and that the quality of education will decline if the plans go ahead.
Western Cape Education Minister David Maynier announced that the department faces a R3.8-billion budget shortfall, partly because it only received 64 per cent of the nationally negotiated wage agreement from the ANC led coalition government.
The department has implemented R2.5-billion in budget cuts and is now looking to reduce the workforce to cover the rest of its shortfall.
Maynier said: ‘Teachers are our greatest asset and reducing the number of teachers in our schools will negatively impact learning outcomes, so this is a decision that we have not taken lightly.’
On Friday 30 August, the chairperson of the National Assembly Portfolio Committee on Basic Education, Joy Maimela, said: ‘We are also concerned with the budget allocation because of the cost and constraints that are being implemented by the Treasury.
However, we did not receive any indication that there are going to be teachers who are going to be laid off or teachers who will be sacked because of the budget cuts.
According to the department, the reduction in education workers, including teachers, is a last resort to ensure the province’s fiscal stability.
NAPTOSA and SADTU have voiced their opposition to the planned job cuts in Western Cape schools.
Riedwaan Ahmed, the provincial Naptosa headsaid: ‘We are opposed to it. We are saying that the government must find the money somewhere so that we retain these posts. We cannot accept the deduction of 2,407 in the system. Otherwise, the system is going to collapse.
‘We are also intending to lodge a formal dispute meaning we can take strike action.’
SADTU provincial secretary Sibongile Kwazi said: ‘We have been consulted by WCDE, although we believe that it was not a meaningful consultation that they made regarding the cut in the basket of posts.’
‘We are well aware of the budget cuts, but what people must understand is that the budget cuts are not unique to the Western Cape.
All provincial budgets were cut for this year, and we envisage that they will also go down for next year, but what is different between the Western Cape and other provinces is that in the Western Cape, trying to address the budget cuts, they looked at spending on staffing, meaning that they are cutting down the number of posts.
‘We already have overcrowded classrooms in our poor working-class schools, meaning that we will be sitting with a bigger problem next year.
‘As a union, we have now lodged a dispute which will include strike action.
‘This will impact negatively on the well-being of teachers, and a teacher who is not well will not be able to teach effectively.’
Fourth-year Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) education student Alicia Fritz said: ‘I am definitely feeling the pressure of finding a placement next year.
‘What worries me the most is the trend of teachers leaving South Africa, and the policies that seem to be pushing educators out of the country.
‘When teachers leave, it’s communities that suffer first and hardest.’
Jaden Classen, a fourth-year Bachelor of Education student, said: ‘I am afraid because it feels like I have wasted four years studying and I might not get a job. I am also trying to keep a positive mindset.’
Meanwhile, weeks of fuel scarcities in Nigeria are compounding a cost-of-living crisis, with the state-run oil company acknowledging ‘financial strain’ was hampering supplies.
Fuel shortages persist across the country, including in Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria, and Abuja the capital. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) cited a significant debt to suppliers posing a risk to fuel supply availability. Fuel shortages have been recurring since the removal of fuel subsidies in May 2023.
Nigeria, a major world oil producer, often sees fuel shortages that cause long lines at NNPCL-run petrol stations that sell fuel at cheaper prices than private operators.
It comes after NNPCL declared a record profit of 3.3 trillion naira (about £1.6 billion) last month and an initial public denial of its huge debt burden.
As well as vehicles, most households in Nigeria rely on petrol and diesel to power their generators as the public power supply is unreliable and prone to blackouts.
Though an OPEC oil producer, Nigeria imports most of its fuel because it has no refineries.
Africa’s most populous country is already struggling under higher living costs, after government reforms to end a fuel subsidy and free the naira currency drove up inflation.
The price of petrol has tripled since the beginning of 2023 in some states, with a knock-on effect on food and transport costs.
Hogan Samuel who lives in Lagos said: ‘The cost of transportation is now very high due to the hike in the price of fuel.
‘I spent 1,100 naira to get to the office this morning instead of the usual 750 naira.’
Many petrol stations were closed on Monday morning in parts Lagos.
Long lines formed at those that were selling, causing traffic jams.
Sola Adewusi, a 36-year-old taxi driver said: ‘We would queue from 6am and still not get fuel until 12 noon or 1pm or 2pm. It is because of our leaders, they are bad.’
The junior oil minister Heineken Lokpobiri told an energy labour summit in Abuja last week that NNPCL needed to raise the price of petrol it sells to independent marketers, claiming that the current price of 600 naira was fuelling the smuggling of the product out of the country.
- Germany has been forced to pull out its military forces from Niger.
At a signing ceremony last Friday in the capital Niamey, representatives from both the Nigerien and German Defence Ministries signed an agreement finalising ‘the withdrawal of German troops and equipment from Niger’.
Nigerien and German officials read out joint statements announcing the completion of the withdrawal.
The joint statement said: ‘This withdrawal does not mark the end of military cooperation between Niger and Germany, in fact the two sides are committed to maintaining military relations,’ they said.
The Bundeswehr, Germany’s army, said it removed the last 60 soldiers and equipment from Niger.
For eight years German soldiers had served in the international MINUSMA (United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission which has its main base in Mali).
MINUSMA was established under the auspices of the United Nations on April 25, 2013 after the Tuareg rebellion of 2012. The UN ‘peacekeeping’ mission was terminated on June 30th, 2023.
Germany’s airbase in Niamey, which served as a logistics centre for the UN mission, had been staffed by up to 120 men and women at any one time.
Since February 2016, some 3,200 German soldiers deployed to the airbase served in the region.
Last year on July 26, the country witnessed a coup d’état widely supported by Nigeriens, resulting in the removal and detention of pro-West president Mohamed Bazoum.
The German military initially announced its decision to withdraw troops in July, noting that it had no cooperative working agreement with the new military government.
In May, Germany and Niger reached an interim agreement allowing the German military to continue operating its airbase in the capital Niamey until the end of August.
Negotiations between the two sides to extend that agreement broke down, notably because the German military would no longer benefit from immunity from prosecution.
The withdrawal of German troops from Niger followed the pullout of troops from the United States and France, the former colonial power.
Niger’s coup was one of several in the region in the recent past as countries cut their traditional colonial ties linking them to Western imperialism.
In Niger, Russian military trainers have replaced the Western troops in Niamey.
