Maths sums on a school chalk board. File Picture
Durban - KwaZulu-Natal Education MEC Mbali Frazer has admitted that the department is in a financially challenging position that will make it difficult to meet some of its primary mandates.
Addressing a portfolio committee meeting last week, Frazer indicated that the department faced an uphill battle in carrying out its core responsibilities owing to a funding shortfall.
“The department’s ailing financial position remains unchanged. The total expenditure as at the end of December 2022 amounted to R45.8 billion. The percentage spent was at 75.8% against the adjusted appropriation.
“As previously reported to this committee, the department has been limping financially as a result of the shortfall on the compensation of employees stemming from the persistent budget reductions applied in the 2021/22 MTEF (Medium-term Expenditure Frameworks),” she told committee members.
She indicated that the 1.5% pay progression had had to be delayed due to insufficient funds.
Her admission has prompted calls for more funding to be made available to the department, with education portfolio committee chairperson Sifiso Sonjica saying they were willing to go to national Treasury to plead on the department’s behalf.
Sonjica said the funding of the department was an ongoing concern which had not been adequately addressed. Speaking on the sidelines of the ANC two-day lekgotla yesterday, he said they would engage with the finance portfolio committee in an effort to plead the department’s case.
“If all these avenues are exhausted without any tangible results, then we will have to go higher up, to the national Treasury, because this is a real concern,” said Sonjica.
He cited early child development and school transport as the areas that were most likely to be affected by the department’s financial circumstances.
He said that under the current funding model, a huge chunk of the budget went to salaries.
According to the chairperson, one of the first steps in dealing with the challenge would be to lobby the finance portfolio committee so the two committees could plead the department’s case first with the provincial treasury.
University of KwaZulu-Natal academic Dr Nontobeko Buthelezi said the MEC’s admission should ring alarm bells for parents, especially those who had children attending government schools.
She noted how in recent times, extreme weather had led to damage to infrastructure, forcing the department’s hand when it was already battling financially.
She added that the department’s underfunding needed everyone’s input, including parents, unions and the general public.
“There are learners who are not doing well in matric because they did not get a good grasp at foundation phase, so there needs to be an understanding that education is a system that needs to be attended to holistically,” she said.
Buthelezi warned that persistent underfunding had the potential to change the basic right to education to a luxury that could only be afforded by a few.
“It is a matter that demands that everyone stands up because a child who is unable to finish school is not a department’s problem, but is society’s.”
The department takes the bulk of the provincial budget.