Salaries cripple KZN education dept

Salaries of teachers in KZN account for more than 84% of the Education department’s budget for the year ahead.

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Durban - Salaries of teachers and other KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education staff account for more than 84% of the department’s budget for the year ahead, squeezing out other vital spending.

This emerged at sittings of the finance and education portfolio committees in the legislature on Thursday, raising the concern of lawmakers, who heard that the per pupil allocations to schools were below the national recommendations.

Education MEC Peggy Nkonyeni and officials, who presented their R45 billion 2016/17 budget, told MPLs the department was spending 4% more than the national benchmark of 80%

Chief financial officer, Hlengiwe Mcuma, said a funding shortfall was faced for the salaries of 650 employees and the money would have to be taken from other projects. There would also be no funds for the appointment of new teachers.

She said although their budget had been increased by 5.33% (or R2.3 billion), it was strained by the wage agreement signed with teacher unions last year.

Salaries for the department’s more than 107 000 staff - including more than 90 000 teachers - would cost the department an additional R2.6bn in the year ahead, R300m more than the department’s budget increase.

“Clearly indicating that some of the allocations to the categories had to be sacrificed to fund compensation of employees,” said Mcuma.

Goods and services have had to take a knock of 6.47%, while infrastructure development programmes have been cut by 1.05%. The department also had no budget for new cars.

The department was spending R222 less per pupil than the national per learner allocation at its poorest schools, quintile 1 to 3.

The national recommendation was R1 177, while KZN was spending R955.

For relatively better-off quintile 4 schools, the department was spending R522 instead of the national recommendation of R590.

Quintile 5 school pupils were getting R179, R25 less than the prescribed R204.

Mcuma said R460m would be required for the department to achieve the national targets.

More than R15m had been allocated to quintile 4 and 5 schools which accepted pupils who could not afford the full fees charged by schools.

The KZN province also had too many no-fee schools which affected the budget.

National recommends that 65.5% of pupils be supported through no-fee schools while KZN was supporting 74% of pupils.

The department would spend R12m on 15 new buses for scholar transport and R130m on special schools.

The department was lashed by concerned members of the finance committee who said the wages were placing strain on the budget.

NFP MPL, Vikizitha Mlotshwa, said most of the budget went to salaries because the department was unable to accurately say how many staff it employed, referring to the teacher headcounts which were continuing.

The ANC’s Maggie Govender said there was an imbalance between salaries and service delivery.

The DA’s Francois Rodgers said it was a concern the department was 4% above the national norm.

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