OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 3.00pm.
DEPUTY President Thabo Mbeki on Sunday slammed teachers for toyi-toying and drunkenness, and urged them to be dedicated to their profession.
Speaking at the fourth annual congress of the South African Democratic Teachers Union, Mbeki asked the teachers to be less militant and to improve their responsibility and consciousness towards their profession and to the education of the country’s youth. Mbeki said the ANC places education high on its agenda to ensure an improvement in the quality of education in all age groups
“You will agree with me that your profession is a calling. The success or failure of our nation depends on what happens at our schools and colleges.” Mbeki said.
Mbeki told the congress that the danger facing South African education, particularly among Africans, “is that producing the good citizen through education, particularly among Africans, is becoming the exception rather than the rule.”
Mbeki added that there are many problems facing the country with regard to the provision of resources to education, despite the fact that a large proportion of the national budget is allocated to the sector.
“In some instances, even when the government has intervened to begin the process of addressing these enormous problems, those who live according to the rules of the traitors and the criminals — and I speak here of black people — have not hesitated to steal food from schoolchildren, to rob the children of their textbooks and to deny us the capacity to employ teachers who are willing to serve, by collecting the salaries of phantom teachers.”
Mbeki said he believes that transformation in education is on track, but that unprofessionalism in the teaching profession is a worrying factor.