The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) wants the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and other organisations to denounce the planned defunding of education.
According to the department, the severe budget cuts which the National Treasury requested for will skyrocket the problems which pupils in the province face.
Education MEC Debbie Schafer explained that a further decreases in funding would affect school placement, scholar transport, safety at schools and more.
Schafer indicated that a third of the department’s infrastructure budget has already been cleared off the budget due to cuts to the education infrastructure grant and Covid-19 expenses.
“If these organisations are generally serious about solving the challenges we are faced with, they will join us in demanding that national government prioritise the education of our children over the continued looting of state-owned enterprises.”
Cosatu, the South African National Civic Organisation and other entities disclosed that a meeting will be held on this matter on Tuesday afternoon.
The union’s provincial secretary Malvern de Bruyn said: “We are willing to join and meet with them to see how we can address the problems and maybe then we can approach national government to see what we can do.”
