An historic agreement between the government and teachers’ unions will affect the jobs of thousands of teachers, reports Rehana Rossouw
A GROUP of negotiators has finalised the route to achieving equality in education and breaking down apartheid’s legacy of unequal funding for different races.
Unequal spending will be erased by the year 2000, following an agreement signed by the Education Labour Relations Council, composed of government representatives and major teachers’ unions.
Parity will only be achieved by forfeiting the jobs of thousands of teachers across the country, but unions are satisfied that after months of negotiations they have struck the best deal possible.
In 1994, after consultation with provincial MECs for education, the government drafted a five-year plan to achieve equality in education. In the first financial year — 1995/96 — 15 % of the education budget would be shifted from the better-funded provinces, and 20% in the second year.
At 80% of the state’s total budget for education, personnel expenditure takes the largest chunk, and inequalities are immediately manifest in differing teacher- pupil ratios. Budget cuts would unavoidably affect the number of teachers a province can employ.
The Education Department is emphatic that it does not intend to decrease the number of teachers employed, but instead wants to re- deploy them in areas where they are needed most.
In their negotiated agreement with the council, the government’s rationalisation measures were approved by the major teacher trade unions. They agreed to a teacher:pupil ratio of 1:35 in secondary schools, and that the 1:40 ratio in primary schools would be extended for another year, to be revised annually.
The first step towards redeploying teachers is an offer of a voluntary severance package to allow those who prefer leaving the service to do so, creating room for excess teachers. Right-sizing committees comprising representatives of the Education Department, school governance committees, staff members and observers from unions will be established to make recommendations about which teachers are in excess. Provincial and national redeployment agencies will be established to compile a data base of excess teachers and facilitate their transfer.
The council also signed an agreement on salaries, offering an average increase of 15,7% this year and establishing guidelines for increases for the next two years.
Education Minister Sibusiso Bengu said the agreement represented a high degree of consensus: “We are by now used to both Naptosa [National Professional Teachers’Organisation of South Africa] and Sadtu [South African Democratic Teachers’ Union] approaching these negotiations carefully and exacting the maximum advantages for their members.”
Sadtu president Duncan Hindle said the agreement signalled a dramatic shift in the past few weeks, during which the unions had finally got the government to agree there should be no retrenchments.
“We all had to accept the reality that there were serious inequalities within provinces and between provinces. Achieving equality was our guiding principle in the negotiations,” Hindle said.
The severance package being offered was “quite attractive”, he added, although it was not enough to retire on. But the money could be used for training in another field, or to start a business. A teacher graded at post level one, for instance, with 13 years’ service, could leave with R18 000.
“We think this will take out the people who are not willing to work in a non-racial democratic education system. If they’re not comfortable with the new order, it’s best they leave,” he said.
The agreement offers some protection against the most qualified and committed teachers leaving by allowing the government to approve their severance packages but retain their services for a further 18 months. Unlike other public servants, teachers who accept the package will never be able to work in the public service again.
The right-sizing committees will have to take the school’s curriculum into account when deciding which teachers are in excess, and then apply the last in, first out rule. So if a mathematics teacher was the last employed at a school, but it has an excess of history teachers, the last history teacher will be the first out.
The teachers the committees decide are in excess then face redeployment to another school. They can appeal against transfer to another province if, for instance, their spouses are not able to join them.
“No teacher’s career will be in jeopardy. The normal labour practices will apply,” said Hindle. “Only in the last instance can the state insist a teacher be redeployed, and if that instruction is ignored the teacher can be charged with misconduct and dismissed.
“There is no big stick, this process will take a long time and be handled as sensitively as possible. There will be assistance for those who move. No teacher will be dumped.”
The South African Teachers’ Assocation (Sata), one of the largest unions in the Naposa federation, said it was a “reluctant signatory” to the agreement. “We signed because we know that many of our members are keen to take the package. We are committed to equality in education and the salary increases were attractive,” said Sata president Hugh Killops.
He said the union had reservations about whether the government had the administrative capacity to handle the redeployment of thousands of teachers. Sata also believed the insistence that teachers who take the package never work for the state again was an unfair labour practice.
“Sata is concerned that the redeployment process is too rushed. The agreement stipulates the packages are available from May 1, and that the right-sizing committees be established within 30 days of signing the agreement,” Killops added.
Because the union represents mostly teachers employed in Model C schools, it would like to offer governing bodies the opportunity to raise funds and employ excess teachers at their own expense. But it is unclear how this will be achieved, since legislation on the powers of governing bodies will only be available for public comment in August.