3 000 guards for KZN schools
2007-09-11 12:28
Pietermaritzburg - The KwaZulu-Natal Education Department on Tuesday announced that it would be employing nearly 3 000 security guards at its poorest schools as well as an additional 5 000 more teachers.
Addressing the media in Pietermaritzburg, Education MEC Ina Cronje said that all the province's poorest schools would have at least one security guard by the end of the 2008/2009 financial year.
This means there would be a total of 3 342 security guards employed at schools.
"We would want them (the security guards) to be there when the children are at school." she said.
The security guards would not be armed.
She also said that the province had managed to fence 90% of its schools and was hoping in the coming years to have all its schools fenced.
The total number of teaching posts in the province would increase from 84 432 in the previous financial year to 89 437 at the end of the 2008/2009 financial year - an increase of 5 005 teaching posts. This includes 2005 teachers absorbed from the Eastern Cape education department after the area of Umzimkhulu was incorporated into the province.
KwaZulu-Natal's teaching ratio would improve to 31.18 pupils per class from the 31.36 pupils in the 2007/2008 financial year.
In 2004 the pupil/teacher ratio was 34.9.
Cronje said she believed the department would be able to recruit the teachers but, like the rest of the country, there would be shortages in maths, science and information technology teachers.
The number of pupils at the KwaZulu-Natal education department schools was expected to increase by 140 000 to 2.682 million.
- SAPA