Francesca Villette
THE Western Cape Education Department (WCED) says schools should scrap subjects with low pupil numbers and revise their timetables to deal with overcrowding.
WCED spokesperson Paddy Attwell said the department provides teachers to schools in relation to the number of pupils that are enrolled.
With the announcement that only six additional teaching posts have been made available for the 2016 academic year, Attwell said schools have to manage their timetables and subjects to ensure a fair distribution of work and resources.
“For example, some schools offer too many subjects, which results in some classes being too small while others are overcrowded,” Attwell said.
The WCED anticipates that about 20 000 pupils will move to the Western Cape next year, but the number of teaching posts for 2016 is 32 039, six less than this year.
Attwell said the WCED, like other provincial departments, had to fund a seven percent salary increase plus other benefits as agreed nationally with teacher unions, which includes a 28.5 percent increase in medical benefits and an increase in the housing allowance from R900 to R1 200 a month.
“We have to cover the additional expenses from our existing budget.”
Other ways the department was preparing for the challenge of overcrowding was by tracking pupils in the system, which provides detailed information on enrolments, schools under pressure and vacancies.
“Parents also have a key role to play by ensuring that their children are enrolled in school,” Attwell said.
Malcolm Venter, provincial executive officer of the Governing Body Foundation said it advised that schools should do an annual reassessment of the subjects they offered to ensure resources were fully utilised.
“If a school offers French for only 12 pupils, the school would then need to decide if it is still a good idea to offer the subject,” Venter said.
There are about 1 460 public schools comprising 1 086 primary schools and 374 high schools.
The WCED’s latest statistics showed that for this year, 23 499 pupils from other provinces enrolled in Grades 1 to 12 in schools in the Western Cape for the first time.