As part of SADTU’s programme of organisational review and renewal, the 2006 National Congress and subsequent National General Councils called on the leadership to improve communication with the members. To this end the 2008 NGC resolved to establish a regular electronic newsletter. Not all members have access to internet, so occasional flyers will be printed for general distribution under the masthead SADTU Update. This is in addition to the quarterly newspaper, Educators Voice.

In this the first edition of the eVoice we catch up on recent events and the back to school challenges.

SADTU President, Comrade Thobile Ntola: Back to school challenges

At the beginning of each year we face the following challenges:

• To ensure all learners are placed and registered. This can be a problem where parents are slow to register; and especially in areas with high rates of inward migration such as Gauteng and Western Cape.
• To ensure that textbooks and stationery have been delivered and are in place.
• To ensure that all schools have been maintained and are clean and safe. Some problems here where schools have been hit by storms (eg KZN)
• To ensure that there are enough teachers for every class. This has been a problem in the past where some provinces have been slow to renew the contracts of temporary teachers at the beginning of the year. Teacher shortages have led to protests in the North West this week. 

In 2009 we face additional challenges:

• The delay in receiving matric results will cause problems for the affected learners in terms of placing them in tertiary education or in FET colleges, or to plan for them to retake their matric exams.
• We also face the challenge of providing places and tuition and support for some 200,000 matric failures – 140,000 of which are entitled to write a supplementary exam in March. 

There have been problems in the Free State on two fronts:

• Lack of scholar transport in the rural areas – with learners forced to walk long distances, and
• Problems with implementation of the school feeding scheme. There have been problems in the past with feeding schemes in other provinces – such as Eastern Cape, and SADTU will be monitoring the situation in this respect.

As SADTU, we have set the following educational priorities for the 2009:

• To popularize the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign – this is a joint campaign between teacher unions and the Department of Education to enlist the commitment of all stakeholders to improving quality
• As teachers we are looking forward to the Teacher Training and Development Summit to be convened by the Department of Education this year. It is vital to develop a national strategy to improve the knowledge and skills of our teachers. We believe that quality teachers produce quality education and this is the key to improving learner outcomes.
• To campaign for fundamental review of the PPM (post provisioning model) – to reduce class sizes, and for curriculum redress – so that all learners have access to a full choice of learning areas; and so that we can implement the language policy (teach African languages and provide mother-tongue instruction).

Matric 2008: SADTU Analysis

As SADTU we are encouraged by the numbers writing matric: 592,000 in 2008. However the fact that the percentage pass rate continues to fall – to 62.7% from 65% last year – is cause for concern.

Our sense is that issues of historical disadvantage and poverty associated with race, class and the rural-urban divide, and uneven support and poor management especially in some districts and provinces are crucial here.

A large percentage of learners – over 40% - never reach matric. Exactly how many are there and what are the demographics of this group? What happens to them – do they simply join the ranks of the unemployed?

For those who write and fail – over a third, ie some 200,000 this year – what provision is there to support them in re-writing? We know that the FET colleges cannot cope with the re-writes.

The increase in the number of endorsements – 20.2% compared with 16% last year – translates into an additional 20,000 qualified to enter tertiary education and needs to be applauded.

Higher education institutions need to gear up to accept these increased numbers. For those students – from poor communities who pass and achieve endorsements – much more needs to be done to assist access to tertiary institutions.

The improved results in Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy – a new learning programme – are encouraging.

However, results continue to be uneven across the provinces. The large poor rural provinces remain disadvantaged.

SADTU has welcomed the new OBE-based curriculum as a necessary break with apartheid education and to make education more relevant to the needs of society. The Union opposes any attempt to destabilize the education system by scrapping the current national curriculum, but supports the call for review and incremental improvement.

Unity is strength: We reject attempts to divide us

During December former SADTU president, Willy Madisha, was claiming in the media that thousands of SADTU members had resigned – 10,000 in the Eastern Cape, 3,000 in the Western Cape. SADTU has received no such resignations. Neither have the provincial departments of education. (The employer has to be notified of resignations in order to stop deductions.)

Madisha’s stated aim is to establish a new non-political teacher union, based on the criticism that SADTU is a ‘political’ organization, with close ties to the ANC and the Alliance. Our response: guilty as charged – but surely this was the policy that Madisha himself championed for the last 18 years! There is also a massive contradiction in Madisha’s stance: as one of the leaders of the Shikota/COPE splinter group he now proposes to establish a rival ‘non-political’ teacher union.

In this endeavour he claims to have the support of the tiny PEU (Professional Educators Union – 20,000 members and declining) and will be operating out of their offices. PEU members need to think seriously about whether they really want to be dragged into a war with SADTU.

Genuine trade unions are led by workers who stand for election to positions of leadership. On this basis Madisha is ineligible to lead the new teacher union he proposes.  As president of SADTU he was still employed as a teacher by Limpopo department of education, but seconded to work for SADTU. When he lost the SADTU presidency he failed to return to his job in the classroom. Having absconded, the department of education stopped paying him. He is no longer a teacher. He cannot lead a genuine teacher union.

SADTU: HIV and Aids Initiative

SADTU North West hosted the launch of the second phase of the Union’s HIV & AIDS Programme in the Lichtenberg Sports Stadium on 9th of December 2008.

The second phase of SADTU’s HIV and Aids programme – to be rolled out in Gauteng, Free State and North West Province - aims to achieve the following targets:

• To empower and train 200 teacher leaders HIV prevention, reduction of  HIV stigma and discrimination, and care and treatment access
• To provide counseling and testing to 3,000 members
• To provide support to 1,700 orphans and vulnerable children at 34 schools, and
• To reach 25,000 members to raise knowledge and awareness around HIV & AIDS.

This forms part of SADTU’s PPCT OVC Project (Prevention Palliative Care for Teachers, Orphans and Vulnerable Children) initiated in 2007 with the aim of using the Union’s structures to roll out a programme of increasing access to HIV&AIDS prevention knowledge, care and support including counseling and testing.

The target populations consist of educators and orphans and vulnerable children in schools. Prevention activities are aimed at increasing male partner involvement in preventing HIV transmission. Prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission and voluntary counseling and testing activities will be facilitated by peer education support groups.

Phase one was rolled out in Eastern Cape, KZN and Mpumalanga over the last year with the following results:

• 12 union leaders and 36 teachers were trained in HIV prevention, care and treatment access.
• A further 10,560 school community members were reached with events focusing on prevention.
• 240 union offices are now used as condom distribution sites
• 21 support groups have been established, with 715 educators attending regularly
• 1908 orphans and vulnerable children in 38 schools are being supported with grants of R900 each (for uniforms, shoes etc)
• 1766 members have received counseling and testing

The project is funded by PEPFAR (Presidents Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) through the CDC (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention). The first phase received $ 1,512,912 and the second phase $1,950,000.

The final phase of the project, to be rolled out in Western Cape, Northern Cape and Limpopo, will follow the completion of phase two.