Despite welcoming President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plan to recruit more police officers into the system and various police units to fight crime, the South African Democratic Teachers Union noted that the president was silent on plans to tackle violence in schools.
DESPITE welcoming President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plan to recruit more police officers into the system and various police units to fight crime, the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) noted that the president was silent on plans to tackle violence in schools.
“Violence in schools is increasing unabated and our schools, instead of being safe havens they are meant to be, are endangering the lives of teachers and learners,” the teachers union said.
Ramaphosa delivered his 2023 State of the Nation Address (Sona) at the Cape Town City Hall on Thursday night. During his speech, he touched on the government’s plan to recruit more police officers to fight against the forever escalating crime.
Sadtu indicated that they would appreciate a police unit specifically dedicated to school violence. The union had raised its concerns last week on the increasing incidents of violence in schools and said it was alarming.
The union also longed for the president to announce a special school infrastructure fund to bridge the gap between the township schools and former Model C schools since the pandemic exposed the disparities in infrastructure between the schools.
“It cannot be that the poor learners and their teachers have to make such huge sacrifices to compensate for lack of resources they do not have, like their peers in former Model C Schools,” it said.
This comes after the president commended the Class of 2022 for their 80.1% pass rate and the increased number of quality passes from the no-fee paying schools.
“Such a good pass came at a great sacrifice from both the learners and teachers who had to sacrifice their time to make up for the time lost during the Covid-19 pandemic,” Sadtu said.
It added that teachers and learners had to work against the odds to compensate for the lack of resources they suffered in township and rural schools.
Meanwhile, Sadtu said while they welcomed the matric passes, they could not fully celebrate the passes when there was no plan to assist learners post-matric.
“While we welcome the increased admissions at TVET colleges, the number of passes exceeds the capacity of higher education institutions to accommodate them. The 500,000 or so learners are scrambling for 120,000 spaces. The country needs two or more universities while we increase the capacity of the current institutions,” it said.
Furthermore, it welcomed the president’s progressive stance on the need to incrementally improve the early childhood development (ECD) and TVET sub-sectors quantitatively.
It said the government’s plan to finalise the Comprehensive Student Funding Model for higher education, particularly for students who fall outside current NSFAS criteria, would be a relief to teachers, nurses and police officers whose children are not receiving financial assistance from the government to access higher education.
“It is an answer to years of begging and pleading from the union and our federation, Cosatu. We would like to see the plan speedily expedited,” Sadtu said.
