Cape Town - Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga needs to ensure that the officials and teachers implicated in buying and selling teaching posts face the full force of the law, the Democratic Alliance said on Saturday.
The DA welcomed the release of the “Jobs for Cash” report on the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) bribery and corruption racket in schools, DA spokesman Gavin Davis said.
“Minister Motshekga waited until the stroke of midnight to release the report. We are glad that the report has finally seen the light of day, even if it was released under the cover of darkness,” he said.
Motshekga had finally stood up to the ANC-aligned Sadtu. Now, she needed to go a step further to ensure that those officials and teachers implicated in all 38 cases of buying and selling teaching posts faced the full force of the law.
The report showed how Sadtu had captured the education system in six out of nine provinces, and how Sadtu had allowed militancy to trump professionalism in its ranks.
“It is time for Sadtu’s bosses to face the music. For too long, Sadtu has been allowed to sabotage our school system to further its own political ends,” Davis said.
“We hope that this report will be the catalyst to break Sadtu’s stranglehold on schools in disadvantaged communities. It is no coincidence that education is deteriorating in provinces where Sadtu dominates.”
There were 16 recommendations in the report, including:
– referring all cases of bribery and corruption to the SA Police Service and that Motshekga engage her counterpart in the police to ensure fair and expeditious resolution;
– prohibiting both school- and office-based educators from being office bearers of political parties;
– establishing separate and distinct unions for school- and office-based educators;
– putting in place measures to stop cadre deployment into the basic education department offices and schools; and
– removing the powers of school governing bodies to make recommendations for the appointment of post level two teachers and above.
“We will be studying every recommendation in the report to determine our position on each one. We must fight Sadtu’s toxic influence on our school system, but we must also ensure that any side effects of the proposed remedies do not weaken the public school system further,” Davis said.
African News Agency