The end of year school examinations in KwaZulu-Natal have been placed in jeopardy following threats by a leading teacher union to embark on a strike during that period.
This follows a decision by the provincial education department to continue to allow children to start formal schooling at the age of six, without a budget to accommodate the increase in pupil enrolment.
A budget to employ more teachers to cater for increased grade one pupils will only be implemented in 2004.
Chaos reigned at schools at the beginning of this year when parents and teachers were told that six-year-olds would be admitted to schools. This resulted in overcrowding and large teacher/pupil ratios at many schools.
The extension of the policy was signed by newly-appointed education chief executive Prof Charles Dlamini and a circular to that effect was sent to all schools and education management bodies last Wednesday.
The extension will see many schools having even more overcrowded grade one classrooms than this year, when more than 40 000 six-year-old grade one pupils start schooling without additional teachers being employed.
Talks between the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) and education authorities to employ more teachers have not produced positive results.
The finance department told the two parties that no money would be available for this purpose even after next month's adjustment of budget estimates.
After Sadtu met education MEC Prof Gabriel Ndabandaba a few weeks ago, it was agreed that the province's attempts to narrow the teacher-pupil ratio from 1-38 to 1-36 should be put on hold until the teachers and pupils statistics had been verified.
Despite the treasury's cautionary note, Dlamini extended the pupil admission policy to next year, saying a "budget to accommodate the increase in learner enrolment will only be possible in the course of 2003 for implementation in 2004".
This has angered the giant teacher trade union, with its spokesman Mlungisi Ntombela saying it had strengthened their resolve to embark on a rolling mass action "to the end of the final exam paper".
Ntombela said they were already organising mass meetings, with October targeted for the start of protest action.
"The level of education in KwaZulu-Natal has gone down so far that it can sink no more," Ntombela said.
He added that the education department had not learnt from this year's experience, when about 40 000 grade one pupils started schooling in terms of the new admission policy announced by Premier Lionel Mtshali last year, without the provision of extra teachers.
"Teachers in KwaZulu-Natal are the only ones who teach extra classes. Some classrooms are without teachers, while others have as many as 50 learners per teacher as from this term, because of the retrenchment of temporary teachers in June," Ntombela said.
"We are calling on all parents and educators to join the struggle and get on to the streets. There will be no exams in KwaZulu-Natal if this is happening.
"This is going to be an endless strike," Ntombela said.
Education spokesman Mandla Msibi said there was a national education bill lowering the school entry age from seven to six years.
The extension of KwaZulu-Natal's learner admission policy to next year was aimed at telling people in advance that this would eventually be the only law.
"It's a national instruction, and the union knows about the bill.
"The white paper was there for everybody to comment on. Other changes include governing bodies no longer recommending the appointment of educators, and for provincial departments to have powers to move educators to where they are needed most," Msibi explained.
