Gauteng township schoolchildren hoping to study music formally could miss out because some white teachers refuse to be redeployed to the townships, the Gauteng Department of Education told the Mail & Guardian.
The affected schools are part of the department’s Magnet Schools project. The project aims to offer schools lessons in subjects generally denied black learners, such as formal art education.
The redeployment of music teachers became necessary when 58 extra-curricular music centres were closed in December 2002, making 171 teachers — all white — redundant. These teachers were offered alternative jobs from a list of vacant posts at the Magnet School of their choice.
The Magnet Schools project is not only aimed at learners at designated schools but is also expected to attract learners from neighbouring schools by offering extra afternoon lessons, hence the term ”magnet”. The schools are spread around the 12 Gauteng districts and include those formerly classified as white, Indian, coloured and African.
An educationist, who declined to be named, said some schools were to have started with music lessons at the beginning of the school year, but the project has been on hold because the teachers and the department are not singing from the same hymn-sheet.
She said violins, violas and other musical instruments have been lying idle at the schools since January because there is no one to offer classes.
Until the Magnet Schools project was introduced, the closest township learners came to a music class was singing gospel choruses and traditional hymns for the duration of the ”music period”.
The education department says some teachers have chosen to resign rather than be deployed to the townships. Some have lodged grievances against their redeployment.
”The department cannot guess whether the resignations were racially motivated or not,” spokesperson Thebe Mohatle said. He confirmed that the project was to have started at the beginning of the year. He was unable to indicate how many teachers are refusing to be redeployed.
”There is a subtle resistance to transformation and equity. It [resistance to transformation] has become a monster. People choose to resign rather than share their skills,” said Mohatle. The department is taking disciplinary steps against the teachers.
Some teachers, the department added, cited security as the chief reason for their refusal to take up Magnet Schools posts. Others said they could not take up the posts because the schools were too far and they would have to relocate.
Mohatle said the department will not create posts where they do not exist and that teachers should accept this. ”Transformation will always have certain spin-offs. Some will not be acceptable to everyone. Some decisions will not be pleasing to all people,” he added.
National Union of Educators CEO Dave Balt told the M&G that the project’s difficulties stem from the education department’s ”poor administration” and lack of tenure security for affected teachers. Balt said all the teacher unions were ”enormously enthusiastic” about the project when it was first mooted, but were let down by the government delaying the project.
The project was agreed with the unions in 2001 but was only implemented this year. This, said Balt, caused about 100 music teachers to leave the system. ”There was enormous enthusiasm [about the project] until they were left high and dry by the department,” he said. ”If you are a breadwinner, you cannot afford to wait for 18 months to find out whether you have a job or not.”
According to Balt the unions signed the redeployment agreements on the understanding that teachers would not be sent more than 40km from their previous posts. ”Race may well have been an issue in some cases, but it must have been in very few cases. The department should have told you that by the time they implemented the project only 70 teachers were left. The rest had gone private.”
Sello Tshabalala, Gauteng chair-person of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union, urged the department to look into its own disciplinary regulations to deal with ”right-sized” teachers who, without ”justifiable and substantiated reasons”, declined to take available posts.
”They [teachers reluctant to take up available posts] do not say it openly, but what we hear in the corridors is that they talk of security. They should be able to tell us how those working there [already] deal with security,” said Tshabalala.