Johannesburg - Limpopo teachers who taught the Grade 10 Catch-up programme during September have not been paid, the SA Democratic Teachers' Union said on Wednesday.
“It is so disappointing to experience this after all forms of persuasion to teachers to engage in this activity... We therefore give the department up to 15 November 2012 to have paid teachers the required amount,” Sadtu's provincial secretary Matome Raphasha said.
Raphasha said the union would consider other options, despite the crucial exam-writing period, should the department fail to pay.
“We are still in meetings to discuss the matter, so we haven't decided on the options, but we are considering a number of options, including taking the matter to court,” he said.
The catch-up programme during the September holidays was intended to teach those parts of the syllabus that had been missed due to the late delivery of textbooks.
Provincial education department spokesman Pat Kgomo said the department was still determining which teachers were part of the programme. They would be paid next week.
“There were no time frames. It was always on the basis that once we have captured everything, payments would be made. Maybe the capturing process was not done according to Sadtu's expectations... we are still collecting the names and timetables of teachers who worked,” Kgomo said.
He said the department was willing to talk to Sadtu about its preferred deadline for payment of teachers.
“What we are saying is that it is not possible that by tomorrow they will be paid, but our doors are always open.”
Sadtu further said it was not convinced by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga's promise of the delivery of study material on time in 2013.
“We haven't seen a real action. Normally by end of September schools would send their choices of study material[s] and by that time books are already in the warehouse. So now we went to the warehouses and checked. There are no signs there,” said Raphasha.
On Thursday, Motshekga said textbook deliveries to Limpopo schools for the new year would be done before December 7.
She was confident pupils and teachers would have learning and teaching materials on the first day of school.
The department had bought textbooks for Grades Four to Six, and Grade 11, as well as stationery packs for all grades.
Raphasha said: “All what she said was also said in 2012, and books were still not delivered... we were told continuous stories about books being ordered until after June, when books were still not delivered.”
Sapa