Picture and Words: Matthew Hirsch and GroundUp Staff
Scores of concerned parents, learners, teachers and union members gathered at Community House in Salt River on Saturday to discuss the planned retrenchment of thousands of teachers in the Western Cape.
The organisers of the meeting described themselves as anti-capitalist, pro-working class group of independent activists.
A total of 2,407 teaching posts are to be cut in the province by 1 January because of severe budget cuts. This is about 6% of the approximately 37,000 teachers in the Western Cape.
One of the organisers, Abeedah Adams, said about 100,000 learners would be affected. We are looking at a situation where already overburdened teachers will have to take on even more work. [The budget cuts] are not limited to education; it's all the services that we need to access.
