Teachers’ union, Sadtu, has poured cold water on the soon to be published “jobs for sale” investigation by the Volmink Commission and threatened to take legal action.
|||Durban - Teachers’ union, Sadtu, has poured cold water on the soon to be published “jobs for sale” investigation by the Volmink Commission and threatened legal action.
An interim report which contained damning claims - mostly against Sadtu - was leaked late last year, with the final report expected to be released on April 15 by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga.
Sadtu KwaZulu-Natal secretary, Nomarashiya Caluza, on Wednesday damned the report as “incomprehensive” and said the union had written to Professor John Volmink seeking clarity, but had apparently been ignored.
The union said the ministerial task team probe “lacks credibility”. Caluza said some of the teachers named and implicated in the interim report had not been called to testify in the commission. She said Sadtu had been implicated in 22 cases according to the interim report, but only two cases had been recommended for further investigation by the police and the department.
Twelve of the cases were apparently deemed not for further investigation, while three had been disputed before any appointment had been made and were still subject to investigation by the Education Labour Relations Council.
“It has been peddled that KwaZulu-Natal is the worst affected, but when you go through what is said in the media, KwaZulu-Natal had less than 8 cases and in only two cases the ministerial task team (MTT) recommended further investigation,” said Caluza.
“These teachers have never been called to state their own case. The report is full of things that have not been clarified,” she said.
A Sadtu NEC resolution dated January 28 said those found to have been involved in irregular appointments and who were found to not have the appropriate qualifications would be dealt with and possibly expelled.
The union said if the report was released without further engagement, they would take legal action in defence of the union. But the Department of Basic Education spokesman, Elijah Mhlanga, said the leaked interim report was a work-in-progress and said there had been many changes to it since.
On the union claims that they were not offered a right of reply, he said they had been invited to testify. “The unions were invited and they committed themselves to the commission. Sadtu was there, so I do not understand the claim that they were not given their right of reply,” he said.
The department this week said the minister was in possession of the draft final report which would released next month. The report would be presented to the cabinet committee next week before being presented to a cabinet sitting on April 13.
Motshekga would then meet with the unions on April 14 and with school governing body associations on the 15th before releasing it to the public on their website on the same day.
Sadtu has also accused Volmink and Education Minister Angie Motshekga of being in bed with the DA, claiming the investigation, which was an administrative investigation - had become a political investigation with the report alluding to Sadtu ties with the ANC, Cosatu and SACP.
The union’s four page statement on the jobs for sale’ investigation referred to the DA 15 times and said the report’s recommendations were “DA policy directives that must at all cost permeate the education system even if the DA is not in power”.
Daily News
* Use IOL’s Facebook and Twitter pages to comment on our stories. See links below.
