AZAPO calls on patriotic teachers to de-link from SADTU 

The apartheid government knew that the best tool for under-developing Black people was inferior education. Any professional that came from that education was to be, only but, a domestic worker, perpetuating systematic under-development, be in the in the field of social welfare, health, education, police forces, etc.

However, the courage, of other commitment evolutionary teachers defied all odds. People like Oliver Tambo, Robert Sobukwe, Steve Bantu Biko and others, emerged with crude knowledge of the limitations of apartheid, and marched forth down the emancipation path with Black people. 

Teachers played a significant role in shaping the minds of these revolutionaries, thus they themselves became struggle teachers in the township and village universities of life and love, universities that taught people how to be patriotic and how to work for the complete emancipation of Black people.

The same cannot be said of SADTU (this new breed of teachers). When apartheid was said to be crime against humanity by under-developing Black people; SADTU can be said to be committing crime against our children (Black children) as it denies them the right to education - in this democratic country.

Teachers under apartheid went to school to teach, even in schools where teachers and learners alike were to duck bullets meant for some revolutionary learners. The story of June 16 is a story of teachers and their learners who committed themselves to ridding Black schools of inferiority education; giving dignity to Black learners.

What of SADTU members?

These are teachers who have not seen value in the education that they are offering to poor children of Black parents. Their children are cared for by white teachers in towns and cities. The schools where SADTU teachers send their children, are protected from continuous strikes that have come to define SADTU in the townships and villages... This is Separate Development in Education, and SADTU is behind it!

Whenever SADTU has squabbles with government (the government that SADTU goes out of its way in putting in place year in, year out), or principal of a school, they resort to striking. The problem with these strikes is that they are linked to some significant calendar moments in the education system, e.g. matric exams, re-opening of schools, etc. Only schools in towns and cities remain free from this SADTU diatribe.

It is a common knowledge that in the deep rural villages, where parents are so poor to can ask any question, schooling does not happen in certain days such as the pay day of teachers, certain Fridays and Mondays. Sadly, even though the school will have a School Management Team, this team is either SADTU controlled, or will be made up of SADTU members.

Something unheard of under apartheid is becoming a common story reported in the media, the fact that teachers sleep and impregnate learners that are supposed to be in their care. As we know that in this country the majority of teachers are SADTU members, SADTU turn a blind eye - that which may be a sign of acceptance of the situation. Why is it that there are no/or few reports of white learners impregnated by their teachers in town and city schools?

In the Eastern Cape, some children still continue to walk kilometres to school; study without necessary study material; in certain circumstances, go without the school nutrition that the government is providing. The question is, has SADTU in its many protests ever protested about these issues? Why hasn't SADTU even been involved in protesting against mud schools in the Eastern Cape?

As the Black Consciousness Movement, we are not happy with this state of affairs in our schooling system. We are saddened by the fact that nearly 400 schools in the Eastern Cape are shutting down as parents are taking their children elsewhere. How about those parents who have no elsewhere to can even think of? How about those parents who cannot make their children immigrants to Western Cape or some of these provinces where education is better than in the Eastern Cape?

We have noted that while some Black schools are losing learners, white schools are turning learners away because of overcrowding.

As AZAPO we make a call to parents to stand up for the education of their children; we call on the Human Rights Commission to defend the rights of our children to education; we call on all self-respecting teachers, patriots with a heart for development of Black people, to de-link from SADTU, and speak out against the SADTU plan to keep Black learners under-developed.

Statement issued by Funani ka Ntontela, AZAPO Deputy National Spokesperson, May 9 2012

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