State Capture by SADTU
Sixty five years ago when I was in standard two (now known as grade four), I had a wonderful teacher called Betty Bateman. She has passed on but I have never forgotten her. I have also never forgotten what I learned from great teachers like Jerry Smith and Malcolm Armstrong, respectively Afrikaans and English masters at Potchefstroom Boys High School in the 1950s.
Why do untold thousands of today’s pupils, or learners as they are now called, not have the same experience of their teachers?
Of course, there are many thousands of dedicated and inspiring teachers in our schools, right across the country and my criticism and observations are not directed at them. They deserve every bit of praise and thanks they get.
I am concerned, however, about the many teachers who are mediocre and sub-standard and who are protected, at the expense of the learners, by their union. By their very nature, trade unions are there to protect their members and to advance their interests. The children come a distant second.
It is concerning that the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) has captured education in large parts of our country, to the obvious detriment of the schools and our children. One hears about state capture by the Guptas and others but one seldom hears about the capture by unions of the state, which includes schools and provincial departments of education.
To her credit, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga had the courage to appoint a ministerial task team (MTT) to investigate allegations into the selling of teacher posts by members of teachers’ unions and provincial education department officials. Despite great pressure and resistance from SADTU, she has finally released the report, known as the MTT Jobs-for-cash report, meriting the public applause given by Tshepo Motsepe of the organisation Equal Education.
Of 81 cases investigated, 38 showed clear wrongdoing or provided reasonable suspicion. The MTT recommended the prosecution of individuals implicated in the sale of posts and disciplinary action against those who failed to stop this.
The MTT report makes many recommendations in response to its findings. These include individual cases of corruption; systemic weakness in the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and provincial education departments; weaknesses in governing bodies; the appointment process itself; the unions and their adversarial stance towards the DBE with no shared vision of education; and the failure of the South African Council of Educators (SACE) to support and develop teachers professionally or to hold teachers to account.
It is clear from the MTT report that most of the provincial education departments are weak and dysfunctional at district and circuit level. They cannot support, capacitate or monitor appointments appropriately. School governing bodies in many instances are weak and untrained, making them unable to exercise their powers and perform their duties effectively. One of the points of comment is that SGBs at most former model C schools (a polite term for former white schools) are a world away from the realities of the functioning of many SGBs in township or rural areas.
Into this vacuum, the unions, especially SADTU move and they tend to take over the power and use it, both departmentally and at the schools and the SGBs, to push their own choices for appointments and promotions, sometimes irrespective of the rules, the procedures and the merits of the applicants.
To be specific, the MTT report finds that SADTU has taken de facto charge of the management and priorities in education in at least six of the nine provinces. It points out, however, that SADTU has only taken over where there is a weak department.
A novel feature of the MTT report is that individuals are identified by codes, not by their names. This was done to protect the accused. I am indebted to Gavin Davis MP, the live-wire DA shadow minister of Basic Education for his useful summary. Thus, we learn about “Ms KZN-10,” a departmental official and SADTU branch secretary, who attempted to solicit a R1,000.00 bribe from “MrKZN-11” in return for an appointment letter. “Mr KZN-11’ obtained the appointment letter but paid only R 500.00.
“Mr NW-6” was appointed to his post due to his SADTU affiliations, despite his lack of the necessary qualifications and experience.
“Mr GAU-1,” the principal of Cultura High School in Gauteng was accused of corruption and nepotism because he used his position to appoint his son “Mr GAU-3” as a technology teacher. He also incurred irregular expenditure of R109,413.17 for unauthorized payments to his wife, “Mrs GAU-4.”
Gavin Davis calls for the immediate suspension of all of these accused while they are subject to prosecution and disciplinary proceedings. He points out that teachers and officials with clouds of suspicion hanging over their heads will be unable to focus on the education of our children. Suspension would also minimise the opportunities for interfering in the gathering of evidence.
Tshepo Motsepe points out that the victims of the corruption in education are firstly, the learners who are forced to learn under wrongly appointed, sometimes-unqualified teachers, principals and senior officials. Then the committed teachers whose career prospects are demoralisingly blocked unless they participate in the corrupt system. Finally, the courageous whistleblowers whose testimony is needed are victimized. Ultimately, all of this has dire consequences for teaching and learning in the affected schools.
No one must believe that there are only a few cases of corruption in our schools. The system has been allowed to rot and it is now time to prosecute the accused and root out all the rest of the corrupt officials so that many more learners can look up to their teachers, learn from them lessons that last a lifetime and realise that hard work is the key to success.
Douglas Gibson is a former Opposition Chief Whip and former ambassador to Thailand
