PARENTS who were angry at the meeting, told the KwaZulu-Natal Education Minister, Mr. Sipho Hlomuka, that they no longer need teachers in their school who are tired of teaching because of the installation of cameras.
This happened on Monday when Hlomuka attended the Chesterville school, Mkhumbane Secondary, following the lack of stability from the beginning of the year.
It has been four months since 22 teachers, members of the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) have abandoned teaching, saying they are fed up with the installation of cameras in the classrooms.
The school had 39 teachers in total, and after abandoning Sadtu’s teaching, the parents got 15 part-time teachers, who are said to have completed their teaching degrees at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and who were said to be paid by their parents.
Hlomuka, who arrived at the school when it was quiet, first got to know the people who closely watched the matter for about an hour, then he stopped to hear the complaints of the parents, who had come out in large numbers. It used to be that when a few of the nominated people spoke to present their grievances, there was a loud applause, and it was accompanied by voices echoing in the crowd, to emphasize the speech of the one who was speaking. When Hlomuka answered, he struggled as he said that if he continued to speak, he would be silenced and they would express their disgust, if he said something they could not understand well. This led the meeting to drag on until it broke up after dark.
A member of the school’s governing body, Mr. Bulelani Majola, told Hlomuka that the teachers told them to come back when the cameras were removed.
He said they took the matter to court, and it came to a standstill with them.
“We have teachers who said they will not come back before the cameras are out. The problem is clear that they are not coming out. They are abandoning our children in a painful way. The parents have made it clear that the teachers who have abandoned the children, it is not known if they have a calling to teach, they asked them to do it somewhere else because they don’t need them anymore,” said Majola.
He complained that there were many ways they could voice their complaints if they had a problem with the installation of cameras in the school.
The parent, Ms. Xolile Buhlalu, told Hlomuka that the teachers who had been paying them for four full months without teaching, were getting up to sit in the joint below the school.
“What we are asking is for you to return Ngobese,” said Ms. Buhlalu, referring to the suspended principal.
Another parent, whose name will not be disclosed, said that since learning has been disrupted, children are forced to stay at home, and hers was raped.
“I blame the department for this. If all this that happened at school had not happened, my child would not have been raped. Right now I am forced to accompany him to and from school, and I have been going to and fro doctors who give mental advice because he is not in a good condition since the attack,” said the parent, who lamented that the situation he is facing as a single parent is getting worse.
In response, Hlomuka said they are asking parents to give them two weeks to investigate the issue of teachers neglecting to teach.
“A person who has not done well should be guided and made to do something right, regardless of which union he belongs to. I will ask them to be arrested,” said Hlomuka.
He said that teachers who are not in school are employed by the department which should check what law they have broken and then check what should happen.
“If we are going to accept that someone should be fired because you don’t like them, that means it won’t work. No teacher is hired over another, there is no law that goes like that,” he said.
Responding to the complaint that it took him a long time to come to solve school problems, he said KwaZulu-Natal has 5,800 schools.
“If there is a trustee who can visit all these schools, I would applaud him,” said Hlomuka.
He admitted that they will not oppose the court’s decision, that the cameras cannot be removed, and said that they will follow its order which tells them to establish a policy on how they should work in the schools that have installed them.
He said he will not get too involved in the matter of the suspended principal because it is between the employee and the employer.