Date: 01/09/2006
Source: Department of Education
Title:Pandor: South African Democratic Teachers Union Conference


Address by the Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor MP, at the SADTU conference, Johannesburg

“Teachers are the frontline in our defence against ignorance”

President Willy Madisha
Deputy President Edwin Pillay
General Secretary Thulas Nxesi
Assistant General Secretary Solly Mabusela
Other national office bearers
Provincial leaders and delegates

Thank you for inviting me to address this national congress. Given that we are 12 years into our new democracy I believe that this congress occurs at an important time in our history. Your reminder to the nation that we should resurrect our democratic appropriation of the concept of people’s education stands as significant testimony to the fact that this progressive union of teachers has not forgotten its close relationship to the history and aspiration of the people of South Africa.

It is an honour for any Minister of Education to be invited to address congresses of organised teachers.

Your invitation to our Ministry and Department is evidence that despite differences of opinion and approach that we may have from time to time, a symbiotic link between ourselves, as contributors to the realisation of the social transformation of South Africa, is vitally necessary and obligated by the role handed to us by our shared history.

The last time a member of the Pandor family was at a South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) Congress was back in 1990, the launch Congress, when a certain Mr Sharif Pandor, with a mandate from the Western Cape region, nominated a certain Mr Mdlalalana as the first President of the union.

It is good to be among progressive teachers who have a full understanding of the deep responsibility we have for giving shape to the intellectual quality of our youth and our nation.

Many of you are teachers who played a role in education during the darkest of times, teachers who have steered our country and its people as we emerged into freedom, teachers who continue to play a leading role in making a reality of the right to education enshrined in our constitution.

I spend a lot of time visiting schools, attending local meetings and functions, meeting and talking to teachers and all these experience give me a very good feel of what is happening in our schools and classrooms. I base my contribution today on much of what I have drawn from this practical exposure.

For this is my first address to a national congress of SADTU. I hope that this contribution will serve as a useful addition to your consideration of educational matters.

SADTU is the key union in democratic South Africa; the largest, the one with the muscle to strongly influence and promote the fundamental transformation of education in South Africa.

As you emerge from this conference, I am hopeful that you will lead and support a forceful impact on the remaining vestiges of apartheid education; an impact that could finally confirm that apartheid education is dead.

Such an assault is necessary, because despite the admirable efforts of our political leaders, despite the admirable efforts of educators working against the odds, despite the admirable efforts of learners learning in dismal contexts, we still find the stamp of Bantu Education and apartheid-induced inferiority in many of the institutions in our country.

This conference must emerge with a leadership, resolutions and programme of action that will signal to South Africa an unambiguous commitment to engage in the final assault against education for mediocrity. As I said at your Council meeting last year, it will be criminal for us to repeat these concerns and debates twelve years from today.

A fundamental change must happen because society can only have faith in a revolutionary future if that faith is buttressed by quality education.

You are, therefore, the frontline in our defence against ignorance.

A conference is an important opportunity for reflection. However, such reflection is only useful if it is used honestly and transparently for a critical analysis of our role as practitioners, our role as agents of social change.

This conference must answer a range of key questions such as the following:

* What did you set out to do at the inception of your organisation?
* What have previous conferences agreed?
* Have you achieved your objectives?
* Do the resolutions and objectives speak to the national interest or do they purely limit SADTU to sectoral interests?

If you have not achieved your previously set objectives, you must in this congress, honestly and openly, ask why.

The SADTU that was formed in 1990 confronted these issues; it saw itself as firmly tied to the pursuit of an agenda of educational transformation in South Africa, an education that would reflect the core objectives of peoples’ education. Given this progressive mandate, you have to ask: what has gone wrong? Why do we all seem to have lost sight of agreed priorities?

If we believe that apartheid ideology was a tool used very heavily against the majority in this country, why have not we been able to mobilise the space opened up by democracy to achieve educational liberation? If we believe that teachers make a real difference, why have not we liberated our nation from the intellectual prison that was Bantu Education?

If we accept this characterisation of SADTU’s role, the first question you must ask yourselves is: what have we done with our progressive mandate?

Responses to this question must begin with the assertion that our victories are joint victories.

From 1992 and earlier, you played a leading role in shaping post-apartheid education policy. When the process of framing new education laws began in 1994, the support SADTU gave to the committee, to the first ministry and to the first post-apartheid department was invaluable, consistent, and progressive. Our policy making was backed up by focused, informed, politically clear submissions from SADTU. These shaped our actions. And look at what we achieved:

* In Grade R, we had only a 40% participation rate in 2002; this year over 70% of five year olds are attending.
* An unprecedented 98% of our children aged 7 to 15 are at school, and over 80% continue beyond grade 9.
* Over the past 11 years we have significantly improved spending on education. Today spending is 50% greater in real terms than in 1994. Our overall education expenditure is at 5,5% of gross domestic product (GDP), which is high when compared to both developed and developing countries.
* We have re-skilled or qualified 90 000 under or unqualified teachers since 1994.
* We have seen a 25% growth in Further Education and Training (FET) college enrolments since 1998.
* We have had massive growth in higher education enrolments, especially of Africans and women, which is encouraging. This year, we allocated R954 million to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), and R302 million was added in repaid loans, which enable over 110 000 poor students to attend university.

These are considerable achievements; these have been our victories.

The next question you have to ask yourselves is: what still remains to be done?

The first thing that has to be acknowledged, as we respond, is this. We have forgotten about the core thesis of people’s education. The core thesis is that education is about the creation of a positive and confident identity for every schoolchild; education is a process that leads teachers and learners to a full understanding and execution of their various roles in society.

People’s education was never a mere slogan or empty rhetoric. Carrim and Sayed (1997) called people’s education “a social movement concerned with the altered forms of production and social life in contemporary societies”.

Peoples’ education is thus a dynamic and positive interface between social action and education praxis.

The development and articulation of people’s education closely mirrored national aspirations for a transformed and transformative platform of education policy and practice.

Post-apartheid education was rejected as a framework that demeaned, that offered anti-intellectual content and practice, and that promoted poor teaching, poor learning and under-resourcing.

The early expression of people’s education focussed on alternative history, alternative literary studies, progressive writing. These are areas in which social action and identity are most usually constructed; so it is important to begin there.

Kallaway (2004) in his seminal work on education under apartheid reflects on teachers as political actors under apartheid. He explains that many taught alternative content to encourage intellectual liberation, but he also refers to quality teaching as a tool of subversion. He asserts that many teachers decided to teach well, to confound apartheid, and to allow the emergence of a well-read cadre of politically mature youth leaders.

What might people’s education mean in our present conjuncture? Is it possible to use our education system for national and progressive subversion? Have you played a role of revolutionary leader of practice and policy? Or have you regressed to unimaginative protests and challenges a model that Carrim and Sayed call “critical” rather than positive struggle?

It must be appreciated that SADTU, through its size and influence, is a union that has the ability to make or to break the national transformation project. I certainly understand that. Its reach throughout the country, its relationships with communities, with parents and with learners, makes it possible for the union to drive a process of educational change, or to ensure it never happens.

One of the facts we need to acknowledge is that not all of us have acted as positive contributors to education change and social reconstruction in our education system. There are many reasons for this, but all we can do at this congress is to return to the truism that states the real difference in education is made by a teacher.

I have taken responsibility for many of the unacceptable aspects of our education system, and I am equally committed to addressing them as quickly and as fully as possible.

I have said on many occasions that it is wrong that black children, especially the poor and those living in rural areas, should have to wait so long for the “better life” we have promised.

I have said that quality is indivisible: what is good for urban middle classes is also good for poor people in fact, the poor deserve even more, given the apartheid legacy we have inherited.

We have no dispute about this, I hope, and we must be bold in ensuring our policies and programmes support this redress approach.

The two major initiatives that I have introduced will go some way to responding more positively to our gross inequalities.

The first initiative is the declaration of “no fee schools” in direct pursuit of the 1994 mandate of the African National Congress (ANC). This year, over 20% (2,5 million poor children, in 7,687 primary and secondary schools), have been relieved of the burden of compulsory school fees, and in 2007 we will move to ensure a full 40% of all learners are in no fee schools. We have been able to guarantee these schools a minimum “adequacy” amount, as a result of improved budget allocations to provincial departments of education. I do believe a more detailed analysis of education funding is necessary in order for us to determine whether the funds that are allocated are being used maximally. In other words, are they giving us that which we intend to purchase?

The second initiative is Quality Improvement and Development Strategy (QIDS UP). Last year, in 2005, cabinet accepted our proposal that a decisive assault on the enduring vestiges of apartheid in education was urgently necessary. If properly implemented, it will serve as a direct affirmative action response to the plight of schools that are attended by the most marginalised in our society. The programme proposes additional quality infrastructure, learning support materials, and additional teachers above the current norms and standards. As I indicated in my budget speech this year, this intervention will be focused, targeted and purposeful. The 2006/07 budget allocation included a significant increase over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) baseline as the initial funding of QIDS UP.

Those are the two significant interventions. They will contribute towards the provision of people’s education, towards improving education for working-class children, towards improving resources, and towards improving teaching. I have also made no secret of my view that teaching is a profession. Thus service conditions and remuneration should reflect that status. I hope that the initiative our cabinet has taken to examine the nature and form of public service remuneration will serve as the beginnings of a movement towards a coherent and fair remuneration structure for teachers.

Nevertheless, we must accept that paying attention to people’s education means paying attention to effective teaching and learning.

No school can claim to be educating if it produces learners who are neither literate nor numerate.

The implementation of our national curriculum requires attention. More and more training will be provided. I must, however, stress that a teacher who knew how to teach reading in the past knows how to teach reading today and should do so. Many teachers who are not succeeding in support learning complain that it is our new curriculum that makes learning and teaching difficult.

It is vital to recall that the curriculum is our curriculum, SADTU supported its introduction. We must do more, all of us, to make the curriculum work. There are schools that are implementing successfully we need to encourage the creation of local curriculum committees that support clusters of schools to share expertise in literacy skills, in materials development, and in promoting success.

The curriculum is challenging, but it is a necessary level of challenge. Together we must devise strategies to make greater sense of it all.

Paying attention to people’s education means paying attention to efficient, informed and delivery-oriented government. Our national and provincial departments will provide high levels of support through qualified and competent people. We will also strengthen and improve Learning and Teaching Support Materials (LTSM) delivery strategies. It is dishonest to assert a demand for quality education, if schools sit for seven months or more without LTSM, if it takes officials two years or more to confirm appointments, and if provinces refuse to delegate meaningful powers to district offices.

Paying attention to people’s education also means paying attention to the quality of teacher development.

We anticipate that the teacher development framework will be available for comment and discussion later this month. There has been some mudslinging on the matter of accreditation (licensing) of teachers. I hope once everyone understands our intentions, they will find it possible to support the proposals I will be making with respect to continuing professional development. I believe it is essential for public confidence in the competence of the teaching profession, but not only for public confidence, for your confidence in yourselves, for your pride in teaching.

Allow me to briefly explain my interpretation of licensing. It is important to distinguish it from teacher registration to teach. By licensing I mean accreditation for teachers who will have undergone our quality assured teacher development programmes that will be offered by competent selected quality providers.

There is no intention to exclude or punish any teacher. Rather, I wish to provide teachers the opportunity, once they are in service, to have accreditation or licensing that indicates their competence has been improved through their participation in development opportunities. I wish to be so bold today as to say I am sure you will eventually support the framework. I believe it will go a long way towards improving the status of teaching as a profession.

I also would seek your agreement that I am accurate in my belief that those who lead our schools as principals should be persons who have proven competence and qualification in education leadership. The proposal that we have made for an entry-level qualification for aspiration principals seeks to give effect to our view that a person who seeks to lead a school should have characteristics that set them apart as quality leaders.

Paying attention to people’s education means paying attention to the content of what we teach and to the competencies we bring into our teaching role. Our curriculum has changed substantially; the skills taught and abilities nurtured are progressive and enabling.

But is the content sufficiently liberatory, sufficiently liberating? Does the curriculum firmly advance the values contained in our constitution? What kind of young South African walks out of school after grade 12 a young South African who respects dignity, who values equality, who cherishes human rights and freedoms?

Given the status of SADTU as the most progressive educator union we also have to examine the degree to which you as practitioners use the socio-political space of your classrooms to inculcate and transmit a progressive agenda.

Some believe that content does not matter. I say to you today that those who believe in people’s education believe content is imperative; content shapes ideas, content defines responses, and content moulds national consciousness. Content is, therefore, extremely relevant.

In closing, Comrade President, last year you challenged your members to work for the improvement of education, to explore creative ways to upgrade and re-skill teachers, and to ensure that they led the struggle for peace and tolerance in our country. I am sure there can be no objections to these challenges; I certainly cannot fault you on these.

But like any organisation, including government, the gap often lies between the preferred policy position, and the actual implementation of these approaches. The Department of Education has this problem; I think the union may have it as well. I have too often been disappointed by the complete mismatch between what the union leadership says, and what members on the ground are doing.

You are opposed to corruption, but some strike and protest when corruption is exposed.

You demand quality education, but are silent when some teachers are late, absent, and unprepared for classes and create dysfunctional schools.

I hope that through my contribution to this congress I have made it clear that I see our relationship as a partnership in the furtherance of equity and quality in education in South Africa.

There are many issues that the spirit and intent of people’s education requires us to give attention to. Among these is the important matter of mother-tongue-based education in our system. We will say more on this in future discussions we must hold.

Suffice it to say for today, if we do not make more effective use of mother-tongue-based education, particularly at the primary school level, our children will not enjoy a quality school education.

In addition to this matter there is the issue of teacher evaluation and development. The IQMS tool was an important joint agreement with the leadership of teacher unions in our country. But as the Secretary-General asserted a few weeks ago, we have too many tools that do not work together in a synthesised and coordinated manner. They have the propensity to confuse the system rather than to enhance the quality of teaching.

It is my intention to establish an external education and evaluation function outside the department but responsible to the Minister. I wish to make it clear here that such an intention must not be interpreted as a move to erode past agreements. Rather we will model the planned national education evaluation development unit as a partner and corollary to existing tools.

People’s education was never empty rhetoric. It was and is a call to progressive national action, a call made in education because it is you, our nation’s teachers, who have the people’s trust and who have the power to shape the emergence of modern, progressive, and humane young South Africans.

People’s education depends on you.

1. Carrim, N and Sayed, Y, Democratising Educational Governance in South Africa: Policy, problems and prospects. South African Journal of Education, 17 (3) 1997: 91-100.
2 Peter Kallaway “Introduction” in Peter Kallaway (ed), The History of Education under Apartheid 1948-1994. The Doors of Learning and Culture shall be Opened (Pearson, 2004).

Issued by: Department of Education
1 September 2006