Question NW1830 to the Minister of Basic Education

Reply:

1. How many persons are employed as (a) provincial office officials, (b)(i) district or (ii) circuit officials working in (aa) an administrative position or (bb) a psycho-social or special needs support position, (c) educators in schools and (d) support staff in schools in each provincial education department.

Response:

PROVINCE	(a) Provincial Office (staff)	(b) (i) District Office (staff)	(b) (ii) (aa) Administrative posts at District	(b) (ii) (bb) Psycho-social/ special needs posts at schools	(c) Educators at schools	(d) Support staff at schools	Total
LIMPOPO	628	1 041	1 723	0	52 155	2 130	57 677
NORTHERN CAPE
GAUTENG	1 408	17 728	16 275	3 374	54 226	4 966	97 977
KWAZULU-NATAL	814	2 822		373	87 876	13 087	104 972
WESTERN CAPE	869	573	-	107	30 818	7 147	39 514
EASTERN CAPE	790	3 532	-	60	53 950	5 648	63 980
FREE STATE	746	1 444	-	86	21 403	4 838	28 517
MPUMALANGA	478	785	162	9	30 058	5 122	36 614
NORTH WEST	850	899	-	749	24 260	2 986	29 744
TOTAL	6 583	28 824	18 160	4 758	354 746	45 924	458 995

NOTE: All figures indicated as received from Provincial Education Departments’(PED).

2. (a)(i) No, there is no guideline for the ratio of learners to provincial employees.

(ii) No, there is no guideline for the ratio of learners to district employees.

(b) Yes, there is a guideline for the ratio of learners to psycho-social or special needs support staff.

(aa) Different norms apply for determining staffing at various levels. Staffing at provincial and district level is determined in terms of conventional methods of determining organisational structures and post establishments which consider the nature and magnitude of the work using work study and job evaluation. These are not based on the number of learners. In addition, the Department has developed the Policy on Organisation, Roles and Responsibilities of Districts (GG No. 36324) which provides for norms to take into account the extent of support the schools require based on distances travelled and poverty ranking.

The Department is currently developing comprehensive norms and standards for resourcing of full service and special schools, which will include provisioning of professional and other support staff to schools. The existing norms on provisioning of professional support staff to schools that are based on learner numbers or ratios provide only for the provisioning of a therapist and senior posts at schools.

(bb) The ‘Technical Guidelines (including the Guidelines for Costing and Budgeting for Compensation of Employees) for the Preparation of Expenditure Estimates for the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF)’ annually published by the National Treasury are used to guide the allocation of budgets for compensation of employees.