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SADTU in KZN has noted and received with some relief the decision taken by the Department of Basic Education to freeze filling of posts where incumbents lost their lives brutally in the hands of mysterious gunmen.  SADTU has over a long period of time raised her concerns about violence in schools and killing of education workers in their line of duty and in broad day light painfully exposing learners to untold form of brutality that many of us have never experienced. These killings have not even spared the poor learners who lose their lives in so tender ages that the nation is robbed future leaders.  The caliber of those murdered always reflects that it would only be the enemies of our societies and development who readily take lives of our agents of change.

This decisive action of the department of education should however take into deeper consideration all other matters related to disruptions in the filling of promotional posts in all schools such that this action does not militate against the delivery of quality education in general.  Filling of management posts in schools follow stringent processes involving many stakeholders with SADTU being such indispensable partner and as such unilateral decisions by the department seek to trivialize a bigger challenge enveloping the system as a whole.

There are some veiled attacks mirrored in the form of abuse of power by the department of education through inconsistent application of rules and procedures in platforms which are ideally intended to protect workers who reasonably feel ill-treated in legitimate processes.  The Employee Relations Directorate of the department tasked with such critical intervention has dismally failed to adopt measures to prevent school based violence and killings traceable to promotional posts skirmishes. Many education workers, as has SADTU, had lost hope in the capacity and commitments of the department of education to do that which is minimal in management of promotional post filling processes.

We, accordingly shall call upon the employer to immediately attend to many other promotional posts related grievances within the department in a manner that demonstrates impartiality necessary to restore the dignity of the department of education in mediating in labour disputes.  This exercise warrants serious engagements between the employer and labour so that it is not viewed as an employer initiated public relations exercise designed to gloss over critical issues affecting delivery of education in KZN. We say this because there are many cases that remain unresolved by the same department which were raised long time ago. A session therefore is necessary where as labour we will be able to raise issues which must be part of the package for investigation.

We call upon on all our members and the society at large to expose those behind these senseless killings since it remains an undeniable fact that criminals stay with us, dine with us and invariably destroy us daily.

We also appeal to the SAPS to prioritize the investigations of these merciless killings of education workers whose success in proper interview processes have been turned into unforgiveable sins by the heartless murderers.

Issued by KZN SADTU