Declaration of the National General Council of the South African Democratic Teachers Union SADTU)
The SADTU National General Council (NGC), which brings together the national, provincial and regional leadership of the Union, representing over 256,000 educators and education workers, met to review the programmes of the Union from the last National Congress held in 2010 and to plan the road ahead fully aware of the magnitude of the challenges confronting our education system in particular and education workers in general.
The National General Council was held under the National Congress mandating Theme: “Organise and Empower Education Workers to Deliver Free Quality Public Education and Build Socialism”
NGC resolved as follows:
In relation to Education in Creating a learning nation
NGC resolved
- To restate our commitment 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 monitor the Department of Basic Education to ensure that they speedily meet their non-negotiables in terms of the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign, including: to provide basic infrastructure, manageable class sizes, learning materials, supporting the teachers and education workers, and teacher development.
- To reaffirm the union resolutions on the commitment to – empowering our membership through professional development, trade union and political education:
- Professional development to train quality teachers to deliver free quality public education – and to this end we will engage with the Minister and Department of Basic Education to speedily implement the agreed upon national strategy for teacher development. In addition, the union has redoubled its commitment to get in to operation its own institute for professional development to provide quality training programmes for teachers and education workers in fulfilling its historic mission to create a new teacher and a new education worker to build Socialism.
- To convene an Education Labour and Policy Conference before the end of March 2012 to interrogate all policies and programmes and the impact they have on our historic mission to achieving – The Peoples` Education for the Peoples` Power.
- To engage the Department of Basic education to establish protocols for communication to all learning sites and stakeholders to avoid the haphazard manner in implementing ANA, CAPS and PANAs.
- To condemn the unrealistic timelines that overload the system which results in the frustration of the teachers who are already demoralised by the lack of infrastructural improvement in the schools that serve the majority of our people who are the poor and the working class.
- To call upon the government to show its commitment to the country`s number One priority, Education, to invest in the development of the Indigenous Languages and compel each school in the country to increase and strengthen the use of African languages in the education system.
- Adopt the campaign on adopting a school as part of the NEDLAC Accord,
- To adopt the strategic plan in fulfilling its responsibility towards creating a learning nation by continuing the improvement of learning through the introduction of national building learning material, and engaging in extensive and teacher based research on the best possible methods of teaching and creating, through our classroom commitments, a nation that learns and advances its civilization within the African context.