DROP THE CONCEPT "ESSENTIAL SERVICE"

The SACP has witnessed the ongoing debate sparked by the decision of the ANC NEC Lekgotla on the issues of making education an essential service.

Without locking ourselves into a language use debate, after having listened to the debate firstly as participants in the Lekgotla and secondly in subsequent interviews conducted by the ANC leadership, we are of the view as the SACP that in order to keep with the spirit and intent of the proposals the phrase essential service must be dropped in the debate, by both sides. Concepts are not used in abstract in society but are an approximation of reality, as it exists.

Unfortunately a concept of essential service in terms of our law and ILO standards means something different. The SACP is aware that in the public service broadly, the current raging debate about education excluded, there has not been a successful conclusion of the negotiations on what services are indeed essential services. This matter has been a thorny subject strike after strike in the public sector and alliance processes to resolve the issues have not borne any fruit.

The latest right wing opportunism of the DA to jump in and support an ANC call and immediately want to extend this to limiting the right of workers in the education sector to strike is just one example of how a discussion can be distorted. The SACP holds the view that declaring teaching an essential service by law would not pass the test.

The SACP however agrees that no one can differ with the need to make education a single and foremost important service in society so that in the manner in which resources are provided we make sure that our children are supported to receive the best form of education.

The SACP is further of the view that we should not just provide an education that produces readily made goods for absorption by the labour market but that our education, an education that must be essential, must be underpinned by the vision of People's Education for People's Power!

This vision requires that our schooling and post schooling education systems do not just produce skilled individuals but individuals who are able to interprete and make sense of their political, ideological and socio-economic conditions and thus be actors to radically alter those conditions. The kind of education we must make essential must be a liberating one. This debate is a completely different debate from declaring teaching as an essential service and the two must be kept distinct.

In order for the above dialogue and action in society to be executed we must drop concepts that could just raise emotions at the expense of the issues at hand. The challenges at hand remain huge for us to be bogged down by concepts.

Statement issued by the SACP, February 5 2013

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