It reminded me of a story I read in Business Day in January. Apparently teachers in Gauteng had been holding political meetings during school hours. Ronald Nyathi, the chairman of the Gauteng branch of SADTU (South African Democratic Teachers’ Union), defended the teachers rights to do this, because apparently "the Labour Relations Act allowed the union to call meetings during working hours, which it had “always” done and would continue to do." and "Teaching hours lost would be made up in the early mornings or in the afternoons"
Nyathi also commented that the schooling in his area would “not be stable” until Jacob Zuma became president (Article here).
Which was all pretty bit dubious. Teachers bunking school to attend political meetings?
The DA, IFP and ANC all condemned Nyali's statements.
Last year Nyathi also told parents from a school in Alexandra to keep their kids away from school the next day: “not a single pupil should be at school tomorrow because they will be exposed to extreme violence.” This was after the provincial education department suspended a whole lot of teachers at that school for not teaching.
Unions are important to protect their members from exploitation, of course. But they shouldn't be protecting people who are not doing their jobs. And they certainly shouldn't be doing it violently. Particularly if children are involved.
What a bad precedent to set to kids!
I found another interesting article from last year, a bit of an overview of political battles being played out in schools:
... organisations wanting to flex their political muscles in schools are doing so to the detriment of children...
... a trend by the South African Democratic Teacher Union (SADTU), in particular, to use threats in schools to get what they want. Earlier in 2009 there were reports that, after teachers were reprimanded in Alexandra for not teaching children, Sadtu threatened that every child who came to school would be met with violence.
A memo came to light from Sadtu, which wanted to put a stop to curriculum training by the Gauteng Department of Education, because such training takes place on Saturdays and in the afternoons on weekdays. Sadtu said teachers must be paid overtime for the courses.
"Anything that extends beyond the working hours and conditions of service of our members will be a declaration of hostilities," the letter read.
"We are in a state of perpetual readiness as Sadtu to disrupt these meetings and declare war on anyone who is arrogant to disregard this call." Article here.
Hmmmm... so I do think Naledi Pandor's warning was well placed. This is something to keep an eye on as elections approach!
5 comments:
welcome back, I'm glad to see that the bloggers' block has lifted. As for SADTU, the least said the better as I am unable to retain decency when commenting on adults who would condem children in the interest of some "rights". The poor continue to get impoverished . . . materially and mentally. As a lover of stats, how about doing a research on the number of school children who have had sex with teachers between 2000 and 2009.
By the way, how do you get the fancy links into your blog? Like the way you refer to "article" and make it possible for me to click on the word and get the link? Are you a geek? Can you geek me too? I want to be a geek too.
Lol, I am a bit of a geek. But you really don't have to be a geek to make those links!!
On your blogger page when you are writing a post, under the "compose" view, there should be a green icon above the area you write... there is an icon to make your text bold, then to change colour, then this little green one which is a picture of the world with 2 links of a chain on it.
So in your text you write "Article here" or whatever you want the line to be called, then highlight it with your mouse and click on the green link icon... then a dialogue box will pop up, and there you put the actual html link: http://www.whatever.com
:)
(Or maybe you already use than green link icon??)
I do love stats but I am not sure if I could stomach those ones... hmmm but now I am curious about it. I wonder where you would find that kind of info? Certainly not on the education dept website!!
About the stats, I would go straight to the source, the girls themselves!!!! And the boys who hate the teachers taking "their" action!!
^^^ And By the way, MoAfrika you might wanna check your rss feed while you're at it. There must be something wrong with it.lol. No seriously, my reader doesn't seem to be picking up your new posts.
Going off topic: I hear Africa is about to suffer once more because of the west's screw ups *sigh* Link
Ah, I think this is the time for Africa to rise up.
My friend just got back from two weeks at home in Zim and she said people are so optimistic, things are getting so much better, and Zimbabweans are starting to return home from the corners of the earth where they have been scattered...
exciting :)
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