Naptosa: Urgent solutions needed for growing class sizes

The call comes amid growing concern about the impact of budget cuts on provincial education departments and other areas in the sector 

Naptosa’s President Basil Manuel said the prescribed teacher-to-pupil is between 1:32  and 1:36. 

However, with an additional 60,0000 pupils entering the schooling system in Gauteng every year, the ratio is constantly growing. 

“This does not mean there are 32 or 36 children per class,” Manuel explained. 

“There are some teachers who cannot teach a full class, and some principals do not teach at all. These people are still counted in the teacher numbers allocated to schools. So you find the teacher-to-learner ratio at 1:40 or 1:43.” 

Basil says the annual increase in pupil numbers has a dire impact on the quality of teaching and learning, as bigger classes are more difficult to handle. 

Basil added that the opening of new schools of specialisation in Gauteng also doesn’t solve all the capacity problems. 

“This does not mean more teachers are being employed. The teacher basket remains fixed for the year. So even when there are more schools, there aren’t necessarily more teachers in the system. So the only good thing about the new schools is the creation of breathing space.

“I certainly hope the minister will have a shot at fixing this because we, too, as a union, are trying. We had a meeting with department heads, looking into how we can reduce class sizes and how we can retain the teachers we have. We are happy to hear that the minister is trying to do something, and we are fully behind her.”

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