Sadtu-driven corruption in education – cancer about to be excised at last?
Many South Africans were shocked by last week's revelations that the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) is buying and selling teaching jobs. Not all of us. Midway through his brilliant How Long Will SA Survive?, RW Johnson addresses the topic in some detail by arguing "the public sector salariat is increasingly unanswerable to government……..teachers have largely escaped from state control…..Sadtu officials buy and sell headmasterships and other schools posts." Johnson reminds us how in April 2014 two KZN principals and the ANC's councillor in the Ugu municipality were charged with murdering two Sadtu colleagues who had blown the whistle on corruption. The Sadtu response to revelations that post selling had been going on since the 1990s, the former Oxford don continues, was "to declare war on anyone who threatened to fight them……it is perfectly obvious that SA can make no real progress towards producing a better educated workforce unless Sadtu is tamed – but it is a matter of belling the cat and government ministers are frankly scared of the union's power." Last week's public revelations and today's response from Sadtu suggest the tide may be turning. As the story below reveals, now that heat is being brought to bear, rather than the classic retort of defending the indefensible, the union is trying to spread the blame. The problem with ignoring disease is that it makes eventual treatment so much harder. Perhaps, as last, this particular cancer is ready to be excised. – Alec Hogg
By Lizeka Tandwa, News24