Teachers take education dept, MEC to court

POLOKWANE – More than 200 teachers in the province are taking the department of basic education and the MEC for education, Dikeledi Magadzi, to court for not paying them their rural allowances since 2007/8.

A notice about the rural allowance was Gazetted in December 2007 by then education minister, Naledi Pandor, and R70,06 million was allocated to Limpopo for paying qualifying teachers’ allowance.

The teachers allege they are owed around R174 million, or R1 300 per month from January 2008.

They also claim the allowance was supposed to be increased annually as per the consumer price index. Some teachers claim they are owed between R70 000 and R80 000 by the department.

The case will be heard in the Limpopo circuit court of the Gauteng North high court.

In December 2012, circular 117 announced the end of rural allowances to teachers in remote rural, poor and no-fee schools. This caused angry teachers at rural schools to commence on a work-to-rule strike.

They refused to attend any seminars, conferences and other functions outside of their working hours.

They only taught learners in school hours and refused to take part in any extra-curri-cular activities.

They maintained that they should have been consulted and that the allowance was budgeted for a whole financial year and could not be stopped suddenly at the end of January, as some teachers discovered to their dismay when they saw that their salaries had decreased on January 22 2012.

Reasons offered for stopping the allowance was the budget constraints and that some teachers received the allowance while others did not.

The issue was supposedly resolved in May last year when the minister of basic education, Angie Motshekga retracted the circular.

Limpopo education department spokesperson Pitsi Maloba says he cannot comment on the matter as the case is sub judice.