Bishop Lavis parents protest declining education standards

Parents and activists from Bishop Lavis picketed outside some of the schools in the area on Wednesday to highlight the need to address a shortage of teachers, overcrowding and the lack of science subjects in the township’s schools. Led by the Bishop Lavis Action Community (BLAC), they were demanding the immediate end to teacher layoffs and the employment of even more teachers among other concerns.

Austerity measures by the national treasury have mainly affected government’s social spending, with the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) laying off 2,400 teachers which will result in bigger class sizes. Western Cape education MEC, David Maynier said that the learner-teacher ratio will increase the class size from 34 to 37 learners per educator. The teacher retrenchments are made worse by the fact that there is already a shortfall of at least 7,000 teachers in the Western Cape, according to the provincial department of education.

Community liaison officer for BLAC, Amanda Davids said that they also call for the reallocation of social expenditure in favour of education and health. In February 2023, the national treasury announced that it would not increase spending on health or even adjust it to align with consumer price index (CPI) inflation, amounting to a real reduction in healthcare spending of 5% according to the Alternative Information Development Centre (AIDC).

“We also call for provision of pure maths, physical sciences, sport and sports sciences, robotics and coding amongst others up to grade 12 level. We demand the government invest in innovative programmes to ensure working class children develop in sciences and end the subtle privatisation of education,” said Davids.

Today, as schools opened for the 2025 academic year, over 1,2 million learners have registered in public schools in the Western Cape, including 107,000 grade 1s and 100,000 grade 8s starting high school, according to the provincial education department.

The MEC has announced that they have added six new schools and 180 classrooms this month and are planning three new schools and 85 additional classrooms in March this year. To keep up with that, the WCED says it is planning to add up to 477 growth posts for new schools, classrooms and learners.