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SADTU boss will toe the line Kingdom Mabuza, The Times, Johannesburg, 6 October, 2014 The newly elected president of the SA Democratic Teachers' Union, Mangope Maphila, will have to conform with the mood of the union's members or risk being purged like his predecessors. In his first speech at the helm of the union yesterday, at its elective conference in Boksburg, Maphila pleaded with his members not to eject him as they had previous incumbents. A visibly worried Maphila promised conference delegates that, when the union found itself "at a T-junction", he would "not turn right, but left" as required by the union's members. "I hope you are not going to do that to me. I hope this will not be something that continues to bedevil us." he said. Maphila's two predecessors - Willy Madisha and Thobile Ntola - were both removed from office for going against policies popular in the ANC-led tripartite alliance. "As for occupying this hot seat, I know what happened to my predecessors," Maphila said. But the new SADTU president had a stark warning for Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga. "We demand a clear commitment from the national Education Department in the realisation of the government's priority. The minister must consult SADTU," he said. SADTU's secretary-general, Mugwena Maluleke, said the trade union had resolved to call on all mining houses to assist the state in providing infrastructure to schools in the vicinity of their operations. SADTU also demanded that African languages should become the medium of instruction at schools, especially in the early stages of child development. The union called for the teaching of history to be compulsory. SADTU spoke out against the annual national assessment system, which was introduced by the Department of Basic Education for pupils in grades one to nine as a means of determining competence. "The annual national assessment system should not be abused to label teachers and demoralise them. "It is demoralising. It is turning our children into robots," said Maluleke. From: http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2014/10/06/sadtu-boss-will-toe-the-line -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
