Teacher unions are threatening to declare a dispute, as disagreements with the Department of Education (DoE) over the Integrated Quality Management System (IQMS) continue.
The DoE is being accused by the unions of attempting to act outside of the IQMS collective agreement. Shireen Pardesi, national negotiator for the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu), says one example is the agreement that training take place over 12 months, ‘but now the employer wants to compress this to three months”.
She says this will compromise the quality of teacher development and therefore not benefit the education system. Pardesi insists the DoE cannot unilaterally alter agreements reached in the Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC). ‘If the employer wants to change this, it must be done at an ELRC meeting.”
Another contentious issue is the 1% salary notch increase. The agreed deadline of July 1 for the evaluations to be completed — and the 1% notch increase to be awarded — has come and gone with very few evaluations being completed.
Teacher unions are arguing that they are not responsible for the delays, and the 1% salary increase should be awarded automatically, as per the agreement. But the DoE insists that delays were caused by the unions, and the automatic notch increase will therefore not be given.
The Director General of Education, Duncan Hindle, says he is not aware of the threat of a dispute. Says Hindle: ‘The union has made proposals which we are considering and we are in communication with the education minister [Naledi Pandor] about this”.