SADTU Statement, 3 February 2015 Racism at Curro Foundation School SADTU is calling for a national commission of enquiry into racism in schools following reports of racism at Curro Foundation School. The South African Democratic Teachers' Union (SADTU) strongly condemns the racist practices at Curro Foundation School and is calling for a national commission of enquiry into racism in schools as we believe the practice still exists in some Former Model C and independent schools. Many lives were lost in South Africa in the fight against segregation. We therefore cannot allow racism to raise its ugly head again. One of the purposes of education is to build social cohesion; it cannot be used to tear us apart. If such incidents happen in schools, we need to ensure that Government takes harsh steps against them. Independent schools in South Africa should understand that they do not exist in a vacuum, but in a country that has a tragic history. They should therefore do all to ensure that we do not go back to the past, but build an integrated South Africa. We further call on government to review the funding of independent school as we believe education should neither be privatised, nor commercialised. The funding of independent schools should instead be channelled towards building public schools infrastructure. We reject the growing numbers of independent schools in South Africa whilst we still have to address immense inequalities in our society. Education is a public good and it must be treated as such. Our call for history to be a compulsory subject in our schools remains relevant and correct given these ugly incidents of racism in our schools. It will assist all of us understand where the country comes from and what lessons to learn moving forward. This matter cannot be postponed if we are to realise common citizenship. Education has a responsibility to teach our people to live together as one. Discrimination undermines common citizenship. Issued by: SADTU Secretariat Contact: General Secretary, Mugwena Maluleke, 082 783 2968 Deputy General Secretary, Nkosana Dolopi, 082 7095156 Media Officer, Nomusa Cembi, 082 719 5157 -- -- 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.
