Parents, pupils and teachers in the Grahamstown area say the Sadtu strike, set to begin today after negotiations earlier this week stalled, spells potential failure for pupils at a crucial stage of the academic year, while a local union representative says the government isn't taking education seriously enough.
Parents, pupils and teachers in the Grahamstown area say the Sadtu strike, set to begin today after negotiations earlier this week stalled, spells potential failure for pupils at a crucial stage of the academic year, while a local union representative says the government isn't taking education seriously enough.
Pupils could arrive for their end-of-year exams next week, only to find no one to present them with their exam papers, let alone invigilate. This is the situation local schools face as the South African Democratic Teachers Union in the Eastern Cape prepares to begin its strike today.
The union has been in dispute with the province's embattled education department for months, demanding the reinstatement of 4 000 teachers; the lifting of the suspension of teachers in Zwelitsha and Fort Beaufort and the immediate suspension of the provincial education boss, Modidima Mannya.
Hundreds of schools in the province are struggling to teach properly after the department terminated the contracts of 4 000 temporary teachers at the end of last year. At the beginning of the year they halted feeding and pupil transport programmes and delayed the delivery of books and stationery to schools, as maladministration and poor financial management in the department spiralled out of control.
It was for these reasons that the national government placed the department under administration. While school nutrition and transport services are back to normal, the retrenched teachers are still unemployed because there's no money to fund those vacancies.
Provincial secretary of Sadtu, Mncekeli Mndongeni, told Grocott's Mail that the union's decision to continue with the strike comes in the wake of and unsuccessful meeting with the top leadership of the tripartite alliance on Wednesday.
“The ANC did not come to the meeting to resolve the concerns we had as Sadtu. In fact they came there to persuade us not to proceed with the action – which was disappointing to us,” said Mdongeni. Mdongeni took a direct swipe at the ANC for not taking education seriously and making it a national priority, after their failure to reinstate 4 000 temporary teachers whose contracts were terminated early this year.
Mdongeni said: "We are proceeding with the strike action tomorrow as planned.” But a senior teacher at Ntaba Maria Primary School in Extension 6, who asked to remain anonymous, said they had not heard anything official from their school and the only information they had about the strike was through rumours. “This strike will undermine what we did throughout the year; it will deny the kids the opportunity to write the exams,” he said.
He said the school was operating on a skeleton staff, with around four teacher posts vacant since the beginning of the year. Concerned parent Nosikhumbuzo Dyokomba, from Extension 6, said, “We feel bad about this strike. Our children will fail, because the exams have already begun.” Dyokomba challenged the timing of the strike and argued that most of the Sadtu members were sending their children to former model-C schools in town, which would not be negatively affected by this strike.
Xoliswa Buda, 16, a pupil at Nathaniel Nyalusa High School, said, ”The strike should not take place because if it continues, we will fail.” The Eastern Cape department of education could not be reached for comment.
