
The South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) is fortunate not to have an ethically-binding professional oath, like medical professionals, holding it morally responsible to society and to the children they are supposed to be teaching.
If they have such an oath or something even near it, then the current behaviour of some of its members when they experience conflict with their employer, gives no hint of its existence.
SADTU’s 60 000 KZN members have a grievance against their employer, the KZN Department of Education, and their way of acquiring negotiating leverage is to viciously discriminate against the children they are supposed to teach.
They do this by actively preventing the matric pupils writing the vitally important trial exams.
This unbelievably selfish and unprofessional action is implemented by the wilful destruction of already written scripts, failure to deliver exam question papers and giving unprofessional instructions to school principals to ignore proven KZN Education Department procedures.
If SADTU really represents the people who guide and instruct our children, may mercy help this nation in the years ahead when they too will have to face the trials and tribulations of life.
With mentors such as these, they will need no enemies.
The implication of this vicious boycott tarnishes the already poor image SADTU has in society and highlights its inability to address real problems in educating our children, such as chronic teacher absenteeism in especially rural schools and child molestation.
Breathtakingly, some teachers are reported to be secretly pleased with the SADTU action as the trial exams are also a performance barometer of their doubtful teaching skills.
It is encouraging however that some KZN principals are true to their calling and have implemented alternative measures to stand by their pupils in this disheartening chapter in KZN education history.
This newspaper congratulates them and assures them of the sustained support of the entire community.