The teachers, all from black high schools, called on education authorities to allow the enrolment of pupils who missed the deadline for the school year. Opposition to undertakings which parents and pupils had to sign on registration – and confusion compounded by a police ban on any meetings to discuss "non-registration" – resulted in hundreds of pupils failing to register before schools re-opened, two- and-a-half weeks late, on February 3.
The boycott – which is said to have involved an estimated 200 teachers, including white teachers employed by the Department of Education and Training – ended yesterday, after a delegation of teachers met Deputy Minister of Development Aid Sam de Beer. During Tuesday's meeting, De Beer agreed to extend the enrolment deadline to 4pm tomorrow, saying afterwards he had done it so parents who had not registered their children in time could "put their case".
In a statement, De Beer expressed his "extreme displeasure" that teachers had "absented themselves from, class to hold unauthorised meetings" and warned that the teachers' stayaway action was "contrary to the conditions of service governing their employment". The "unauthorised meetings" apparently refer to unsuccessful attempts by teachers to meet DET officials. When teachers later twice tried to gather at township venues, police prevented them from doing so.
A meeting on Wednesday, where teachers, gathered to hear the delegation's report-back on discussions with De Beer, decided to return to school, nearly didn't take place. Police forming part of a large contingent at the Guguletu venue finally allowed it to proceed. A condition was that police be allowed to "monitor" the meeting. Witnesses said it went ahead in a "very tense" atmosphere, about 30 uniformed policemen and kitskonstabels forming part of the audience. A feature of the teachers' action was the co-operation between the "progressive" Democratic Teachers' Union (Detu) and the traditionally more conservative Peninsula African Teachers' Association (Penata).
De Beer referred in his statement to a stayaway at five schools, but according to Nikani about 200 teachers, including whites, at as many as 10 schools were involved: the five main high schools in Nyanga, Langa, Guguletu and New Crossroads as well as three Khayelitsha secondary schools and two new comprehensives which opened this year in Langa and Guguletu. Nikani said another meeting with De Beer was scheduled for next Tuesday, when teachers would bring fresh demands.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
