DailyNews.gif SADTU slams Mandarin in schools plan Chris Ndaliso, Daily News, Durban, 15 September 2015 The SA Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) in KwaZulu-Natal is to mobilise the pupil organisation, the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), to strengthen its campaign against the introduction of Mandarin in schools. At a media briefing at SADTU house on Monday, provincial secretary, Nomarashiya Caluza, said the union's provincial executive committee (PEC) had resolved at the weekend not to allow the Department of Basic Education to go ahead with the introduction of the language. "We are going to mobilise COSAS. The Polokwane and Mangaung resolutions around the teaching of indigenous languages remain partially implemented. "The minister should therefore focus on those resolutions instead of rushing to Mandarin. "KZN has more than 2 000 qualified, but unemployed teachers. Teaching of indigenous languages would absorb some of these teachers," Caluza said. She said the PEC adopted a programme of holding seminars around the province to explain why the union was against the introduction of Mandarin in local schools. Recently, the government assured South Africans that it was going ahead with the introduction of Mandarin. The Mail & Guardian reported that Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, had issued a circular to national and provincial education authorities informing them the Chinese language would be taught in public schools as of next January. The language would be rolled out from grades 4 to 10, followed by Grade 11 in 2017, and Grade 12 in 2018. COSAS secretary-general, Khulekani Skosana, said they were unhappy with the department's move to introduce the language in schools. "We're getting lost as a country. We don't understand our own neighbours and that could be the reason of the recent xenophobic attacks. Why then not introduce at least a language from our neighbouring countries to close the gap of lack of understanding among us as Africans? "This Mandarin will create more confusion and is not for the benefit of the African child. "We are fully behind SADTU and we will give our support in their move to stop this," Skosana said. From: <http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/sadtu-slams-mandarin-in-schools-plan-1.1 916440#.VfjhmhGqqko> http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/sadtu-slams-mandarin-in-schools-plan-1.19 16440#.VfjhmhGqqko -- -- 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.
