The South African Democratic Teachers' Union, Sadtu, is preparing to take the Eastern Cape education department to court, in a bid to put a halt to its 2012 Post Provision plan, which has seen the axing of thousands of temporary teachers and the reassignment of permanent teachers.
The South African Democratic Teachers' Union, Sadtu, is preparing to take the Eastern Cape education department to court, in a bid to put a halt to its 2012 Post Provision plan, which has seen the axing of thousands of temporary teachers and the reassignment of permanent teachers.
This comes as the provincial education department has threatened temporary teachers with legal action and vowed to stop paying their salaries, unless they report to the schools they've been reassigned to. In a statement on its website this week, the department said it had sent more than 1 000 assumption of duty letters to qualifying temporary teachers throughout the province, assigning them to various schools around the province.
This, according to the statement, is to put into action its "promise of ensuring that teachers are made available to make sure that learning and teaching is not compromised by tardiness resulting from the uneven implementation of Post Provision". Instead of reappointing the more than 4 000 temporary teachers whose contracts ended last year, the department conducted an audit of staff numbers at schools, based on which they took what they considered to be excess teachers from overstaffed schools to fill the positions left vacant by the temporary teachers.
Temporary teachers registered with the South African Council of Teachers, however, would also get letters of employment. However, Sadtu has slammed the process, saying teachers were not consulted. "We are going to court [next Friday]. We were supposed to settle the matter in court last year, but they (the education department) delayed the process by submitting their papers on the eve of the court date," said Sadtu provincial secretary, Mncekeleli Ndongeni.
Ndongeni accused the department of not only acting in a dictatorial way, but also making matters worse by assigning teachers to teach subjects for which they weren't qualified. "They take teachers who teach critical subjects like maths and accounting and replace them with those who teach different subjects like biblical studies, which cripples the province's standard of education," he said.
The strongly worded statement, issued by department spokesman Loyiso Pulumani, reads, "The Department wishes to issue out a strong warning to anyone who interferes with legitimate departmental processes, that they will be countered with the full wrath of the law."
Teachers are given 10 days to comply with their re-assignment. "The Department will be left with no option but to withdraw the method of direct bank deposit of their salaries, instead it will consider issuing bank-guaranteed cheques at the legitimate point of service (the schools where they have been reassigned to), to affirm that indeed movement has been achieved as required by regulation," read the statement.
In addition to the court action, a Grahamstown-based Sadtu official claimed members would strike today. The organisation's regional deputy secretary, Nolitha Mboniswa, told Grocott's Mail that while this was not part of the organisation's regional programme, it was possible local Sadtu members might be planning something.
