When told that the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) is on strike, one is tempted to employ Dorothy Parker’s old joke: “How can they tell?”
Sadtu is not, or not yet, on strike. But it is threatening to boycott union-government forums and to work to rule. Why? It wants Angie Motshekga, the minister of basic education, to resign. “If the minister does not submit her long-awaited resignation, we will limit our interaction with the department to the employment contract and strictly within the working hours only,” Mugwena Maluleke, the Sadtu leader, declared.
Many people inside and outside of government may be sympathetic to the call: Motshekga has been a disaster as a minister of education. More than that, she has been an embarrassment. But why does Sadtu want her to resign? Because she won’t give markers of matric exams a 100% pay increase – a rise apparently agreed upon two years ago but not implemented for cost reasons, which should perhaps have been obvious from the start.
Sadtu also pooh-poohs Motshekga’s proposed solution to the problem: she wants biometric tests carried out at every school to ensure teachers are in school and teaching. Sadtu is right to say this is a preposterous idea but the union also says it does not want its members to be “disciplined” by the state that employs them. Maluleke’s statement that “we will not take instruction from the ministry or department” sounds bizarrely unteacherly and more like a rebellious schoolchild refusing to be taught.
This, too, at a time when Public Service Minister Lindiwe Sisulu is unveiling ambitious and forceful plans to make sure South Africa gets the public servants it desperately needs – and that includes teachers.
The ongoing catastrophe that is basic education requires urgent remedial action, as shown by the ANC’s initiative to make teaching an “essential service”. Motshekga’s biometric idea echoes this desperate need for a solution. Neither may be workable, or make any difference, but at least they are attempts to imagine some action that could be taken. Sadtu offers nothing in the way of solutions apart from “pay us more money” and “don’t tell us what to do”.
However, it turns out (and we can’t see a happy outcome for anyone) the Motshekga-Sadtu barney is a sideshow to the real crisis – which neither party seems to grasp or, if they do grasp it, they misunderstand it: basic, structural issues have to be addressed.