Free State, Bloemfontein, 7 October 2009

Introduction

Allow me to greet you on behalf of the leadership of SADTU and our 240,000 members. We like to mention our large numbers in order to strike fear into the hearts of any employers present in the audience. But it also reminds us that the Union is the membership – and it is these members that allows us as SADTU to make statements on issues of education policy and on behalf of educators.

In the time available I want to cover the following areas:

• World Teachers Day
• Arts, Sports and Culture in Education
• Education priorities going forward

What is World Teachers’ Day?

The United Nation’s UNESCO inaugurated 5 October as World Teachers’ Day in 1994 to commemorate the signing of the UNESCO/International Labour Organisation Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers on 5 October 1966.

On 5 October, teachers’ organisations worldwide mobilise to ensure that the needs of future generations are taken into consideration in this increasingly complex, multicultural and technological world. On this day – across the world - we recognise the valuable and hard work of teachers.

Teaching has never been easy. On a lighter note, this is what the Greek philosopher, Socrates, had to say over 2,000 years ago:

“Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.”

World Teachers Day 2009

Mindful of the global economic crisis, Education International this year has said it is time to invest in teachers. EI rejects the notion that in this period of recession and declining budgets, governments will be tempted to cut back on public spending and education. This would be the wrong way to go. This would intensify the recession as government demand for goods and services is reduced. It is also a very short-term approach to dealing with the recession.

We are training people now so that the skills we need will be in place once the economy comes out of recession. It is a tragic fact that the single factor holding back South African economic growth in recent years has been the shortage of skilled labour. We know that a large reason for this is the long term results of apartheid and Bantu education. But we also have to say that one of the lasting effects of GEAR and the class project of 1996 was to curtail public spending – including on education – so that we were never able to fully address the historic legacies of the past, particularly in the field of education and training.

In addition to the particular problems we face in South Africa, EI argues that education spending is also crucial to combating the global recession. In EI’s “Action Plan for Education and the Economy”, they argue the following:

“Education is a critical investment in the future of societies. Schools and other educational institutions exist in communities across every nation. Maintaining and even increasing employment in them will benefit each community in this time of crisis. The inclusion of resources for education staffing in national recovery plans will have an immediate and positive fiscal impact – one of the strongest according to IMF economists – while helping to retrain workers confronted by restructuration and ensuring the education of the next generation.

EI believes this is the time to turn crisis into opportunity, for education unions to take the initiative. EI has developed a plan for action to defend public funding for education, and to mobilize political support for investment in education as a critical element in economic recovery.”

EI proposes the following ten point plan for teacher unions to take forward this vision:

State the needs

1. Compile details of staffing needs in education – for teaching and other positions in schools, vocational and other educational institutions – building on your existing knowledge, surveys and research.

2. Express these needs in terms of the personnel required to provide quality education in safe schools for children and young people.

Call for national plans

3. Draw up national plans to address these staffing needs. In countries with two or more EI member organizations, try to reach agreement on a single plan, if possible.

4. Present the unions’ national plan to the authorities, to allied and friendly organizations, including parents and other trade unions, and promote the plan publicly.

Campaign to hire, not fire

5. Call on the authorities to work with education unions to maintain existing levels for teachers and support staff, and on plans to train and recruit the personnel needed to provide quality education in safe schools.

6. Reaffirm union policies on acceptable standards for teacher education.

7. Support increased teacher education and other training programs, as well as mentoring and induction programs so as to retain newly recruited personnel.

8. Develop cooperation across education sectors, supporting the crucial role of universities and other higher education staff in research and innovation as well as teaching, including teacher education, and the need to strengthen staffing for vocational and early childhood education.

Keep up the pressure to achieve the MDGs

9. Remind governments and public opinion that keeping on target to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, including Education for All, is vital to global recovery.

10. Advocate more not less cooperation between North and South. Official development assistance must be increased; multilateral development agencies must be strengthened; teacher education must be reinforced in countries striving to achieve their MDG targets; unions can help each other with capacity building.

The message is very clear, as we celebrate World Teachers Day. Now is the time to invest in teachers and in education.

Art, Sports and Culture in Education

There was a time, comrades, after 1994, as we began on this long journey of education transformation that we used to talk about “leveling the playing fields”. However, the truth is that – fifteen years later – when it comes to school sports – the majority of our schools don’t even have proper playing fields, let alone basic sports equipment. Comrades, as we move into 2010 – and the FIFA World Cup – it is a massive indictment that most of the schools in poor communities do not have proper sports and physical education programmes.

That is why SADTU’s Sports Festival and SACCOM programmes are so symbolic. We seek to keep alive the sporting spirit and to provide opportunities for members to develop these skills. Of course this can never be a substitute for the necessary policies and resources that government has to bring to bear.

In the meantime, as SADTU we have pushed for sports development to take place in the schools. As far back as 2001, we made a joint presentation with USSASA and Wits University in which we argued that the NCS (New Curriculum Statement) had to incorporate certain minimum resources for effective sport and physical education to take place at school level. These included:

• Time –  to be clearly allocated in the timetable – and not part of some general learning area like life skills

• Skilled personnel – many of our best physical education teachers were removed in the rationalisation and redeployment process. They have to be replaced.

• Articulation with South African sports programmes – it is vital that the schools sports programme feed into local, provincial and national sports programmes for the various codes. This is why South African rugby and cricket have been so successful.

• Maintained infrastructure. Sports and physical education is not a once off investment. Infrastructure – such as playing fields – has to be maintained. The upside of this is that we would also be creating additional employment for people to look after the grounds.

Unfortunately, there has been little movement since 2001 and we still have a long way to go before the playing fields are truly leveled as far as school sports is concerned. The same can be said for the rolling out of music and cultural programmes in our schools.

SADTU’s recent National General Council debated the lack of schools provision in relation to sports, arts and culture and made the following proposals:

• The Department needs to develop a vision and school sports policy to ensure mass participation in sport and physical education. This has to be adequately resourced at every level, and the provision of necessary infrastructure.

• Educators need to be incentivised to participate in sports programmes outside of school hours. This includes the provision of paid leave.

• Learners who excel need to be scouted and identified for development and bursaries; and that specialist academies be established to further meet the needs of such learners

• Educators need to be trained through the SETAs which need to provide accredited courses for all sports codes, and for referees, coaching, first aid, events management, music and drama etc.

• We said that arts and culture – and particularly music - must be offered as a learning area in all schools, and the Department must establish posts accordingly.

Education priorities going forward

We are celebrating World Teachers Day, and we can never forget that as much as we are a trade union struggling to defend the conditions of our members, we are also educators and we have a profound interest and responsibility in the broader education system.

In line with this, the recent NGC identified the following priorities:

• To reassert SADTU’s historic mission – as the leader of over two-thirds of South Africa’s educators - to lead education transformation in the country

• To prioritise the issue of school safety, to better understand the challenges we are facing, and to develop comprehensive policies and implement measures to combat these problems

• To call for the FET Act to be repealed and the FETC (Further Education and Training Colleges) sector brought back under the authority of the state to ensure good governance, quality education and centralized bargaining in the sector. This is part of the plan to widen training options for youth through relevant curricula within an expanded integrated post-school education system

• To restate our enthusiastic support for the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign, and in particular to commit ourselves to the non-negotiables, including that teachers must be on time, on task, thoroughly prepared and behave professionally in accordance with our code of conduct at all times. The Union unequivocally condemned the minority of teachers whose bad behaviour – particularly sexual abuse of learners - brings the profession into disrepute.

• To engage the Department of Education to ensure that they meet their undertakings in terms of the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign, including: to provide basic infrastructure, manageable class sizes, learning materials and teacher development and support. 

• To fully support the Teacher Development post-Summit process in the belief that well-trained and motivated educators are key to quality education. Teacher evaluation must go hand in hand with teacher development to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom. This requires that the present IQMS (Integrated Quality Management System) be streamlined and effectively implemented. Expanded teacher training and development also requires that colleges of education be reopened

• To work to strengthen SACE (South African Council for Educators) for the purposes of providing relevant CPTD (Continuous Professional Teacher Development), as well as to support the EDTP-SETA for purposes of facilitating skills development.

• To support attempts to increase and strengthen the use of African languages in the education system

I want to focus further on the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign. Education was identified at Polokwane as a priority not just for government, but for the society as a whole. In the President’s State of the Nation Address this year and in the Election Manifesto of the ANC, again education was prioritized. Again at the recent COSATU national congress, education – and the poor quality of education delivery – was the focus of comments by President Zuma and by Comrade Blade Nzimande of the SACP.

We are mindful that poor quality education and dysfunctional schools are harmful to our learners, represent a drain on public funds, and prevent the South African economy from reaching its full potential by starving it of much needed skills.

Comrades, our friends in the Alliance have made a call to all patriotic educators to strive to improve the quality of learning and teaching in the classroom. This includes ensuring that teaching time is actually used for that purpose – to teach our children. That is why the last two NGCs has endorsed and supported the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign. We are saying it is our contractual duty as teachers to teach for the time allocated – including on payday. But more than this it is our revolutionary duty. For the children of the working class and in poor rural communities, the education that we provide, is there main chance of breaking out of the cycle of poverty and attaining that better life that they have been promised.

The Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign calls on all of us to clearly identify our roles and responsibilities in delivering quality education.

As educators we are obliged to live and work according to the Code of Conduct agreed by the South African Council for Educators. As trade unionists we have developed our own additional codes which govern appropriate conduct of educators, and between educators and learners and colleagues. We have said – that as part of this campaign - we will sign up to the following non-negotiables:

I will read out the pledge that we as teachers are making:

As a TEACHER, in line with the South African Council of Educators (SACE) Act 31 of 2000, I promise to:
• teach, to advance the education and the development of learners as individuals;
• respect the dignity and rights of all persons without prejudice;
• develop loyalty and respect for the profession;
• be punctual, enthusiastic, well prepared for lessons, and of sober mind and body;
• maintain good communication between teachers and students, among teachers themselves; and between teachers and parents;
• provide regular information to parents on their children's progress;
• eliminate unprofessional behaviour such as teacher-pupil relationships, drunkenness, drug use, assault, and others;
• make myself available to provide extra-mural activities.

As teacher unions we have called for adequate resources, training and support for teachers. In supporting the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign, we are also affirming that as educators we have a vital role to play in ensuring that quality education becomes a reality for all our children.

Let me summarise: educators must be on time, on task, well prepared and professionally behaved at all times.

HIV and Aids

Finally comrades, there can be no quality education without simultaneously waging war against the scourge of HIV and Aids. One in eight South Africans is HIV positive – this includes educators. We have approximately one million Aids orphans. As educators we confront these challenges in the classroom every day. For the sake of our teachers – and as role models to the learners – our behaviour must be exemplary in this respect.

That is why as SADTU we have taken a very clear line this year in response to cases of sexual abuse by teachers in the classroom. We have said that we cannot tolerate this behaviour, and we have called on all SADTU members to report such behaviour to the authorities.

Concluding remarks

It is a strange accident of history that one day after we celebrate World Teachers’ Day, we are called upon to celebrate the birth of SADTU on October 6th, 1990. This year the Union is celebrating its 19th anniversary. In 2010 – as we go to our national congress – we will be celebrating a landmark twenty years.
In those two decades we have come a long way. With 240,000 members, SADTU represents over two-thirds of South African teachers. It is the largest union in the public sector and the second largest union in the country.

But we dare not become complacent. Our tasks remain huge:
• to secure improved conditions for our members
• to spearhead the transformation of education in this country, and
• to play our role as part of COSATU and part of the Alliance in driving forward the National Democratic Revolution to fundamentally change the socio-economic conditions of the mass of our people.

To achieve these goals we need to build and strengthen the organization of the Union and to empower each and every member – through political and trade union education – to fully understand their role in the struggle that is before us.
I thank you.