WHEN THE SUN RISES WE WORK HARD TO DELIVER MPUMALANGA EDUCATION PROVINCIAL STRATEGIC IMPERATIVES AND PERSONNEL ALLOCATION, AND ITS IMPACT ON THE NUMBER OF EDUCATOR POSTS FOR A 3 YEAR PERIOD BEGINNING 2017 ELRC Education Indaba - 20 June 2017 1
Background and context PPN Policy document utilised: Mpumalanga Department of Education (MDoE) applies the national Policy: Post Distribution Model for the Allocation of Educator Posts to Schools (Government Gazette No 19627, dated 18 December 1998, as amended by Government Gazette No 24077, dated 15 November 2002, as amended in 2008 per CEM decision (inclusion of new subjects). Said Policy was incorporated as Annexure A1 to the updated Personnel Administration Measures (PAM) and formally signed off by the Minister of Basic Education in February 2016. PPN input tables: MDoE as from 2016 exclusively utilises SASAMS data downloads for the Public Ordinary School PPN input tables, while still utilising the national Survey forms in respect of Special schools. 2
Background and context continued Technical Application of the Model Poverty redress versus number of posts distributed: Almost 92% of Mpumalanga schools (1591 of 1736 schools) are in quintiles 1-3. MDoE applies the DBE Post Prov software poverty redress module, which is based on redistributing a percentage of posts according to provincial quintiles. Promotion of subjects: MDoE abides with the learner weightings forth flowing from subject-learner combinations as built into the Model, and does not make additional provision for the promotion of subjects. Application of Categories of learner disability: MDoE appropriately applies the relevant disability weightings as contained in the national Policy. On the whole the MDoE runs the model with the weightings as determined by DBE, and only effect adjustments where the PPN outcomes indicates below minimum post provision in respect of the following categories of small schools: Small Secondary Schools: Minimum 10 posts; Small Primary Schools: Minimum 2 posts. 3
Background and context continued MDoE Promotional post allocation norms Both the Gazetted PPN Policy and the PPN-Revised Policy as in the PAM are silent on the criteria to be used in allocating promotion posts to schools. The National UNICEF Report warns against the downward adjustment of promotion posts norms due to financial constraints, to make available more post level 1 posts. This is a risk considering the sector s focus to improve governance at school level. Departmental Heads and Deputy Principals generally make up the Management Teams at schools, and if the administrative burden at large schools is divided between a small number of educators, it can result in inefficiency as well as frustration amongst the members affected. Mpumalanga Education provides these posts as set out below: School Type Dep Principal Departmental Head 1st 2nd 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th Primary 15 TH POST 31 ST 6 TH 12 TH 18 TH 24 TH 30 TH - - - - - - - Secondary/ Combined/ LSEN 15 TH POST 31 ST 6 TH 12 TH 18 TH 24 TH 30 TH 36 TH 42 TH 48 TH 54 TH 60 TH 66 TH 72 TH 4
Indicative Budget over the MTEF The guideline budgets of the 2 outer years compare as follows with the budget allocation for 2017/18 in as far the budget split on Personnel versus Non-Personnel allocation is concerned: Financial Year Total Education Budget R'000 Total Education Budget excluding Conditional Grants R'000 Personnel Budget R'000 Budget Split (Personnel versus Non- Personnel% (including Cond Grants) Budget Split (Personnel versus Non- Personnel% (excluding Cond Grants) 2017/18 19 322 742 17 879 141 15 589 577 80.7% 87.2% 2018/19 20 921 129 19 394 659 16 523 267 79.0% 85.2% 2019/20 22 095 256 20 482 981 17 847 553 80.8% 87.1% 5
Legislative Guidelines for Education Budget Structuring a. In terms of the National Norms and Standards for School Funding (NNSSF) Gazetted on 12 October 1998, the Ministry of Education determined that Personnel versus Non-personnel spending should be of the order of 80:20. b. The NNSSF furthermore determines that, within the total personnel allocation in provincial education departments (PEDs), educator personnel costs should be targeted at 85% and non-educator personnel costs at 15%, to allow for the appointment and proper distribution of administrative and support staff. c. The basis for the 80:20 Personnel versus Non-personnel split is to ensure that PEDs set aside sufficient funding for Non-Personnel expenditure items towards delivery of quality education. The same applies with respect to the 85:15 educator versus non-educator split, i.e. ensuring that a PED has sufficient Public Service staff to support education delivery processes. 6
Holistic Analysis of the Staff Establishment vs the Budget a. In as far as the NNSSF 80:20 personnel-to-total cost split directive is concerned, MDoE is currently at 80.7%, and is therefore not in compliance. b. When the Conditional Grants portion of the total cost is discounted, the Department is left with less than 13% of the remaining budget to cater for all goods and services, running costs of offices and exams, subsidies to Section 21- and no-fee schools, independent schools, special schools, early childhood development centers, payment of capital assets etc. etc. c. In as far as the NNSSF 85:15 educator-to-non/educator split directive is concerned, Education is currently allocating 90% of its overall COE budget to educator remuneration, and is therefore also not in compliance. 7
Concepts of Affordable vs Unaffordable Post Establishment The National UNICEF Report: Implementation of Post Provisioning clarifies these concepts of Affordable and Unaffordable Post Establishments, and emphasises the following: An Affordable Post Establishment (APE) as determined by an MEC in consultation with Labour is a Post Establishment distributed to schools equitably in compliance with the National Norms and Standards for School Funding, and independently of the budget available in a particular year or the number of learners in a province; At least 7 of the 9 provinces are distributing an Unaffordable Post Establishment (UPE); and the concept of an Affordable School Establishment (ASE) is currently not considered in management processes at provincial level. Provinces are rather determining school establishments to retain a particular number of posts, or to maintain a particular on the basis if a fixed 8
Impact of not applying the NNSSF 85:15 educator-to-non/educator split a. MDoE has consistently during periods of financial constraint either frozen or delayed the filling of posts in the Office sector and School Support Staff sector to free up funding to maintain the same pool of educator posts as from 2010. Education now has markedly less office based staff and support staff in schools than in 2009, as reflected in the 3 Tables below: i. Decline in Staff numbers from 2009 Office based (Also due to the provincial moratorium instituted in February 2015 on the filling of posts in offices, including office based educator posts) - YEAR SECTOR SERVING EDUCATORS SERVING OFFICIALS TOTAL STAFF VARIANCE - OFFICE BASED STAFF 2009 OFFICES 853 1990 2843 Baseline 2010 OFFICES 834 1922 2756-87 2011 OFFICES 836 1882 2718-125 2012 OFFICES 824 1822 2646-197 2013 OFFICES 825 1788 2613-230 2014 OFFICES 823 1755 2578-265 2015 OFFICES 778 1702 2480-363 2016 OFFICES 744 1639 2383-460 9
Holistic Analysis of the Staff Establishment vs the Budget ii. iii. Decline in Support Staff numbers from 2009 Ordinary Schools YEAR SECTOR SERVING SUPPORT STAFF VARIANCE - SUPPORT STAFF 2009 PUBLIC ORD SCHOOLS 5986 Baseline 2010 PUBLIC ORD SCHOOLS 5731-255 2011 PUBLIC ORD SCHOOLS 5530-456 2012 PUBLIC ORD SCHOOLS 5390-596 2013 PUBLIC ORD SCHOOLS 5228-758 2014 PUBLIC ORD SCHOOLS 5206-780 2015 PUBLIC ORD SCHOOLS 5186-800 2016 PUBLIC ORD SCHOOLS 5206-780 Decline in Support Staff numbers from 2009 Special Schools YEAR SECTOR SERVING SUPPORT STAFF VARIANCE - SUPPORT STAFF 2009 PUBLIC SPECIAL SCHOOLS 451 Baseline 2010 PUBLIC SPECIAL SCHOOLS 441-10 2011 PUBLIC SPECIAL SCHOOLS 435-16 2012 PUBLIC SPECIAL SCHOOLS 413-38 2013 PUBLIC SPECIAL SCHOOLS 307-144 2014 PUBLIC SPECIAL SCHOOLS 345-106 2015 PUBLIC SPECIAL SCHOOLS 340-111 2016 PUBLIC SPECIAL SCHOOLS 337-114 10
Strategic Imperative: Strengthening of Education Management The improvement of the basic education system is a national priority. The Department s capacity to implement and deliver on its learner attainment strategy has however become severely compromised as a result of categories of vacant management which also have a role in and impact on the improvement of teaching and learning in the classroom. Category A: Critical Senior Management posts Following the abolishment of all vacant and vacated SM posts, the Department of Education had to conduct extensive internal streamlining of SM functions to ensure continued line function reporting and service delivery. Some of these streamlining initiatives are however not sustainable in the long term, especially considering the impact of ongoing attrition. 11
Strategic Imperative: Strengthening of Education Management Category B: Critical District - and Circuit Management posts The Departmental organizational management model provides for strategic planning, policy making, coordination and monitoring at Head Office level, and for implementation by the remaining three education management tiers i.e. district management (2 nd tier), circuit management (3 rd tier) and school management (4 th tier). The existence of vacant education management posts in the 2 nd tier and 3 rd tier creates a fundamental management gap between Head Office and schools, which has a detrimental effect on the Department s ability in ensuring an enabling environment for schools to function in line with education law and policy; supporting principals and educators to improve the quality of teaching and learning in their institutions; as well as entrenching system accountability by having education line managers to account for the performance of the education institutions in the district / circuit in question. 12
Strategic Imperative: Strengthening of Subject Advisory Support Critical Professional Subject Advisory Services Subject Advisors are district based curriculum education specialists possessing specialized knowledge and skills in a specific subject field, and are the key delivery agents for the implementation of Goals 1 to 13 of the Education Action Plan which all related to improved learner outcomes. Failure to ensure the provision of critical Subject Advisory services is deemed a serious obstacle to the Department successfully implementing improved learner outcomes in Mathematics, Sciences, Languages and other under-resourced mass enrolment subject areas across the system. 13
Strategic Imperative Provision of Support staff in Ord schools Failure to support schools and learners through adequate provision of support staff might have severe legal implications, especially where the health, wellbeing and safety of learners and educators are placed at risk. Failure to ensure the provision of at least one Admin Clerk per school will seriously compromise the Department s capacity to fully implement SA SAMS. The Department will also be unable to effectively deal with the financial administration and - management issues at schools raised by both the Auditor-General and Provincial Treasury. Failure to provide a minimum allocation of General Workers will not only compromise the general cleanliness of the school work environment to the extent that it will negatively impact on processes of teaching and learning, but would also pose a very real health and sanitation risk. Having convinced communities to allow their children to be placed fulltime in the care of a Boarding Schools after phasing out educationally non-viable farm schools, failure to provide a minimum allocation of hostel staff would seriously compromise rendering the package of essential services required by these learners in terms of learner supervision, hostel management, cleaning, laundry, basic health care, supply and stores, food preparation and kitchen duties etc. 14
Strategic Imperative Provision of Support staff in Special schools The Department has a pressing responsibility to ensure the provision of support staff for the most vulnerable learners in the Province i.e. learners with special education needs. In as far as remedial and professional services are concerned, the Department has due to financial constraints strategically clustered small Social Support teams in the Province to provide services to a variety of schools in a particular geographical areas. Schools are also utilizing the services of professionals in the Department of Health. Some of these schools however have boarding facilities and the same needs in respect of critical hostel related posts will therefore apply, including the provision of onsite basic health care. Failure to furthermore provide a minimum allocation of General Childcare/Therapy Assistant posts in special schools for learners with severe/mild intellectual impairment severely compromises the Department s ability to provide around the clock care for these learners, including classroom support, assistance with physical therapy, social interaction, bathing and personal hygiene, dressing, feeding, etc. - in fact all the day to day personal, physical and emotional care required for the wellbeing and safety of these learners. 15
Strategic Imperative Provision and professionalisation of Grade R The Department is required to over the MTEF accelerate the phasing in of additional posts to facilitate growth of Grade R classes towards universal access. The consequence of inadequate access to Grade R education for all children is that the delivery of basic education is not enabled and facilitated. The drive to professionalise the Grade R sector furthermore inherently requires that Grade R Practitioners (currently remunerated on a stipend system), be translated to fully fledged Grade R Teachers as and when they meet the qualification - and registration requirements. In terms of the number of Grade R Practitioners currently enrolled for improvement of their qualifications, it is anticipated that more than 400 Grade R Practitioners will have to be translated to Grade R Teachers in early 2019, at a projected additional COE cost of more than R80 million. 16
Strategic Imperative: Non-personnel pressures and backlogs The Department has - inter alia identified the following areas where escalating budget pressures will be experienced pertaining to Non- Personnel Expenditure over the MTEF, coupled with increasing backlogs: Inadequate funds to cater for all LTSM provision - and top up needs; Inadequate funds to cater for school furniture provision; Inadequate funds to comply with the 1% skills levy requirement; Inadequate funds to comply with the national targets for school funding; Inadequate funds to fully implement Learner Performance Improvement strategies, which may affect the provision of winter - and other additional classes; Inadequate funds to sufficiently cater for operational items, which will in turn affects training programs and support to schools. 17
Recommendation for strengthening of PPN processes Actioning the DBE Plan Subsequent to the release of the National UNICEF Report, DBE already in 2013 prepared a Plan of Action to deal with the concerns and recommendations identified in said national report. It is strongly recommended that the implementation of said Plan of Action be fast tracked, including the following: ACTION NO. POST PROVISIONING IMPL IN THE BASIC EDUCATION SECTOR: PLAN OF ACTION PPN POLICY 3. The revision of the revised post-2008 PPN policy based on developments in the sector since 2008 including the areas discussed in order to publish as a government notice a final comprehensive policy through SM and Branch Heads including Branch C and Branch P as well as specialists in policy development led by Branch T. 8. The development of a manual detailing the various roles, responsibilities, processes and outputs required to effectively implement the Distribution of Educator Posts to Schools policy in order to standardise PPN implementation nationally and manage the risk posed by high staff turnover in Human Resources nationally and provincially, led by Branch T in partnership with Branch P 9. The development and implementation of a systematic capacity building plan on the PPN process and implementation at the national and provincial level in consultation with sector specialists led by Branch T INITIAL TIMEFRAMES FOR COMPLETION October 2013 March 2014 January 2014 18
Recommendation for strengthening of PPN processes Actioning the DBE Plan ACTION NO. POST PROVISIONING IMPL IN THE BASIC EDUCATION SECTOR: PLAN OF ACTION POLICY IMPLEMENTATION - COMPUTER SOFTWARE PROGRAM 10. Protocol should be developed on updates to the software including business process, approval and advocacy-approved by DG and HEDCOM led by Branch T in partnership with Branch P 11. Upgrades to the software in line with the 2008 policy as well as harmonisation of the EMIS role in the PPN process. This should include addressing the ASS developments regarding LSEN not reflected in the software led by Branch T in partnership with Branch P. 12 Upgrades to the software in line with the newly revised 2013 Comprehensive Policy to ensure perfect alignment with the proposed policy for gazetting led by Branch T in partnership with Branch P. 13. The development of a manual based on the PPN software with clear roles and processes for the national and provincial level led by Branch T in partnership with Branch P. 14. The development and implementation of a systematic capacity building plan on the PPN process at the national and provincial level in consultation with sector specialists led by Branch T in partnership with Branch P. INTIAL TIMEFRAMES FOR COMPLETION October 2013 October 2013 March 2014 March 2014 January 2014 19
THANK YOU 20