During the recent public-service strike, I experienced a rollercoaster of emotions, not one of them positive. They fluctuated between frustration, anger, hopelessness, confusion and sadness.
I am an educational therapist at a school for pupils with special educational needs in KwaZulu-Natal. We cater for learners with cognitive and physical impairment.
We also have an autistic unit, which is growing at a tremendous pace. One of the most important needs of children with disabilities, especially those with autism, is routine and structure — exactly what was taken away from them over the past four weeks, among many other things.
The majority of our pupils come from poor and rural socioeconomic environments and stay in a hostel the school rents from a neighbouring school.
A week before the strike started, our deputy principal spelled out the rules and regulations to us. She specifically stressed the “no work, no pay” rule and assured us that we had a choice to join the strike or continue working.
Little did I know that the initial one-day strike was going to paralyse my workplace for almost a month.
I stay 50km out of town and was one of the few staff members who chose to continue working. For 17 days, I drove to work intending to continue my therapeutic programme.
At school, we had to sign an official attendance register every day. The principal had to collect the forms, sign them and send them to the district office.
On most days, there were no learners at school. They were left in the care of the already understaffed hostel mothers.
The school was closed by 10am, but we had to sign out ‘2pm” on the attendance register. We were told that we could stay longer if we wanted to “put our lives in danger”. One morning, after my regular 50km trip, I couldn’t enter the school, because the gate was locked.
I was desperate to sign an attendance register to indicate that I was prepared to work (and earn my salary). I went to our district office to try to find help.
The silence and dysfunctionality at the office was overwhelming, but I managed to find a single working gentleman.
He couldn’t help me and I was sent to the local police station. The police officers looked at me as if I wasn’t fully clothed and didn’t have a clue what I was talking about!
Close to the end of the strike, we discovered that none of the official attendance registers had been submitted. One of my work colleagues offered to take them to our district office. On her way to hand them in, she was called back to school to allow some of the striking staff (most of them on the management team) to sign every single attendance register before it was submitted.
I was shocked and disgusted by the corruption engaged in by my own colleagues in front of me.
How could my principal allow some of my colleagues to come in and use 10 minutes of their “precious” striking time to sign their names on all the registers with the same black pen I’d used for the preceding 17 days? And how dare my principal warn me not “to put myself on a pedestal” because I did the right thing?
A wise person close to me made me realise that we had the freedom to choose, but our mouths were shut and our hands were “amputated” when we wanted to express our choices.
The outcome of the strike at my institution is unmotivated teachers, a negative atmosphere, burnt-out hostel staff, almost empty classes (because the parents weren’t prepared to leave their children in an extremely unstimulating environment any longer) and pupils deprived of education, stimulation and the opportunity to be integrated into society.
And it left me with a bitter taste in my mouth every day I enter the school premises.
The sound of the vuvuzela was recently one of hope, optimism and a brighter future.
The same sound made by thousands of strikers reminds me terribly of a missed goal: “Education for all”.
The identity of the writer is known to the Mail & Guardian