The Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) condemns the bully tactics of the Free State Education Department, which has unilaterally decided to withhold a portion of public schools’ resource allocations without proper consultation or notifying the relevant schools and their governing bodies.
The Freedom Front Plus demands an explanation for why these funds are being withheld from the Free State MEC for Education, Mamiki Maboya.
According to FEDSAS, seven of the nine provincial Education Departments have not paid out public schools’ full resource allocations. In the Free State, only a portion of the funds has been transferred.
Schools have responsibilities, particularly with regard to teaching and learning materials, and cannot afford to have unilateral decisions disrupting their financial planning and daily operations.
What is particularly alarming is that the affected schools and their governing bodies were not informed that these funds would be withheld.
This turn of events confirms the VF Plus’s fears that the new BELA Act affords the Education Department too much power while curtailing the powers of governing bodies.
The VF Plus will keep pressuring the Department in an effort to reverse the serious implications of this decision and ensure that schools receive the funds they are entitled to.
