PEU DRAFT MEDIA STATEMENT ON FINDINGS OF THE MINISTERIAL TASK TEAM (MTT) REPORT ON ALLEGATIONS OF SELLING AND BUYING OF PROMOTIONAL POSTS
- The Professional Educators’ Union roundly and unequivocally condemns the selling and buying of teaching posts as reported by the Volmink report. We therefore urge Minister Angie Motshekga, to not even think of, but to just go ahead in pressing criminal charges with law enforcement agents, to ensure that this cancerous anathema, hell-bend on discrediting the teaching profession and the delivery of quality education, becomes uprooted once and for all.
- PEU welcomes the report, and seize this moment, to shower accolades to MTT, for their effort put in dealing with this seemingly energy usurping exercise, that proved to be marred by technicalities and tactics. Minister Angie Motshekga is also thanked, for having mastered the necessary courage to follow her convictions to appoint the team. The report could not have come at a better time than this, when the moral of many deserving educators is below its lowest ebb, due to the fact that they have been continuously and deliberately side lined when it comes to promotional posts.
- We however, notwithstanding contextual factors such intimidation , express our concern that thirty eight(38) cases for those fingered in the scam is just a scratch on the surface, as many of the cases fell between the cracks and with hindsight, a Judicial Commission would have gone a long way in ensuring that we get to the bottom of the scams. We also feel that as things stand, some of perpetrators might be buoyed by their tactics and branding themselves as “the untouchable”.
- Some of the teams’ findings, namely, that six out of the nine provinces have lost control and management of their respective education system, does not take us as a surprise, as we saw it coming and that this simply marks the culmination of a long standing practice of wrong appointments into positions of management and responsibility in the name of cadre deployment, and the latter is one of striking features of the report, which has been pervasive in these affected provinces, from time in memorial. Cadre deployment, as pointed out in the report, ensured that appointments in higher positions in the department are skewed towards certain group of individuals with little or no consideration of what it takes to occupy such positions. PEU feels vindicated by this finding as most of our members remained victims of cadre deployment and we at this point in time declare our unqualified support to the team’s recommendation that it be done away with.
- The fact that our School Governing Body were left to grabble with the enormous task of recruiting educators in promotional posts, which warrants an indebt knowledge on managerial skills, is rather asking too much from most communities, taking into account their level education, which is of course concomitant with injustices of the past. This alone provides a fertile ground for scams, as many a times, Teacher Unions do capitalise and occupy the space , thereby ending up dictating the way to go, which further paves way for exploitation, due to the fact that some SGBs’ inability to deal with dynamics that comes with provincial resolutions and policies on the recruitment of teachers into promotional posts.
- In conclusion, the findings of the report generally imbues one with vigour and courage, and has provided a launching pad for stakeholders to look at the bigger picture and rise above narrow self-centredness and greed, with an endeavour to restore credibility to the teaching profession and confidence in our education system. All of the above is achievable, only if those with the know-how are allowed to lead us, without any form of attachment. We pledge our support to the Minister in her endeavour to implement some of the recommendations made by the team and will never stand on the way, when those fingered in the report will be made to face the law, even if found to be our members.
END OF STATEMENT
ARRANGED BY BEN MACHIPI.
GENERAL SECRETARY.
079 515 1165
