SPEECH TO THE WESTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT BY BRETT HERRON, GOOD MEMBER AND SECRETARY GENERAL
26 March 2021
RECKLESS AND IRRESPONSIBLE EDUCATION MEC SURRENDERS R350 MILLION FROM EDUCATION BUDGET
Tucked away in the Western Cape Provincial Government’s adjustment budget, making adjustments to the 2020 budget just before the end of the financial year-end, is the shocking surrender by the Department of Education of a whopping R350 million.
The bulk of the surrender is made from Public Ordinary School Education and Public Special School Education staffing budgets.
Earlier this week the MEC said that she was unable to place 6000 children in schools, 2 months into the new school year, because of funding cuts by national government.
In Forest Village, a housing project built by this provincial government, children are learning under trees in a make-shift classroom. It looks like a scene from a deeply rural part of our country – not in a modern urban place like the City of Cape Town.
All they want is to be taught in their mother tongue – isiXhosa.
But the MEC says she is unable to find the budget to provide mother tongue education to families who were relocated to Forest Village for their housing opportunity.
Today she is asking this parliament to approve the surrender of R350 million that could employ the teachers to educate those denied access to a school and those who need mother tongue education.
This parliament should not support this shocking proposal.
It is reckless. It is uncaring. And, it is a disgrace.