While not a panacea for the system’s challenges, the BELA Bill is a step towards improving education quality through learning and teaching, but it needs a committed teaching force.
World Teachers Day 2024 was established in 1994 by UNESCO to thank educators worldwide for their contributions to shaping the world. Where would we be without teachers?
Last year, the South African Council of Educators dismissed 36 teachers for various misdemeanours. For all the good, there are bad apples. We need no reminder that children cannot read, write, or display numeracy skills by grade four. The infrastructure inadequacies, especially pit latrine toilets, lack of proper sanitation, and poor school safety and security, are well documented. But what about ensuring the skills that would make teachers more effective in the classroom?
With the rudeness shown to teachers by pupils, the lack of respect from the government in recognising their value as citizens, and the downgrading of the profession by unions invested more in politics than people, educators are not in a happy space. While there has been an uproar in the Western Cape, unions' silence on teacher cuts is alarming. Both the South African Democratic Teacher’s Union and the National Professional Teachers' Organisation of South Africa have had more to say on the Bela Bill than the plight of teachers who will join the ranks of the unemployed.
The leadership vacuum at unions has also resulted in their diminished powers. Thirty years after the end of apartheid, it is necessary for unions to rediscover their voices, which made them relevant and strong before democracy. They must show that they care about those whose subscriptions pay the salaries of their elected leadership. Sadtu and Naptosa will insist they care about teachers. But they don’t show it enough.
Sadtu Naptosa Bela Bill Teach Learning Democracy Trade Unions
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