Sadtu buckles over teacher deployment

Teacher redeployment can go ahead for the first time in over a decade.

The SA Democratic Union yesterday threw in the towel and agreed to a high court order which obliges it to cooperate with the education department’s teacher staffing decisions for schools for the next three years.

Despite Sadtu national general secretary Mugwena Maluleke swearing under oath in an affidavit that South African children did not have a constitutional right to a basic education, the union has now conceded that they do have this right and that the union, its office bearers and all its members had a constitutional and statutory obligation to promote the right and not infringe it. The union also agreed to the high court declaring the union’s directive in April to its members not to participate in the process of identifying excess teachers as an unlawful breach of the constitutional rights of learners to an education.

The far-reaching order included a high court interdict prohibiting the union from interfering in any way with the department’s determination of teacher post establishments at public schools or redeployment or transfer of teachers.

The department resorted to the Grahamstown High Court on an urgent basis in July, asking it to declare that Sadtu had a constitutional duty to fulfil the rights of children to a basic education and that it was flouting this duty and preventing the department from meeting its own constitutional obligations.

Acting head of provincial education Sizakele Netshilaphala said in court papers that Sadtu had, over many years, consistently and deliberately thwarted the department’s attempts to properly allocate adequate staff to all schools, in the process preventing many children from receiving a basic education.

Maluleke says in his affidavit he does not know what the department means by a right to basic education. “There is no such right. I deny that there is an ongoing unconstitutional breach of any right by Sadtu.”

Netshilaphala said it was extraordinary that the national general secretary of the largest union of educators in the country could declare that the country’s children had no right to a basic education.

“This may go some way towards explaining the conduct of Sadtu.”

With Sadtu caving on almost every issue, the department may now finally set about transferring about 4200 teachers from schools where they are not needed to schools suffering desperate teacher shortages.

It also means that for the first time in many years the department won’t have excess teachers on its books and may well be able to balance its personnel budget rather than dipping into other budgets to make the books balance.

The department said in court papers that Sadtu’s blocking of teacher redeployment had over the years resulted in over-staffing at some schools, under-staffing at others, over-expenditure of its personnel budget and resultant shortages in other parts of the budget.

In terms of the court order Sadtu and the department entered into a new collective agreement based on the union’s recognition of its role in fulfilling children’s immediately realisable right to education.

In the far-reaching collective agreement it binds itself to cooperate with and implement the department’s post provisioning process for 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Any disputes during the process are to be referred to expedited arbitration and Sadtu agrees not to picket, strike or engage in any protest action over disputes.

The department also has obligations in terms of the collective agreement, including that it ensures all teacher transfers are processed and completed within time periods stipulated in a management plan.

It must appoint a facilitator to address deteriorating relationships between provincial office-bearers and officials of the department.

The agreement may not be terminated before October 2020.