Sadtu accepts school interdict
‘Our members should not act in a violent or unlawful manner in legal right to protest’
THE SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) has welcomed an interdict by the Western Cape High Court barring anyone from disrupting evaluations at schools.
The interdict application was sought by the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) against Sadtu and the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) this week after disruptions and protest action at nearly 150 schools halted pupils’ participation in this year’s systemic evaluation.
The tests, which assess the language and maths skills of pupils in grades 3, 6 and 9, are used to track progress, set annual targets, inform teacher training and support, and evaluate the impact of educational interventions.
Sadtu called for a boycott of the evaluations and made several calls for them to be discontinued. It said pupils were overtested and there was no real analysis of data.
“Annually, tests are conducted and the union has seen no significant changes due to the fact that intervention programmes are either not implemented or the time allocated for these programmes is not sufficient…
“We are of the view that it is not the tests that improve the system, but the remedial work based on the data obtained from this standardised test,” Sadtu said.
It called on parents, teachers and schools to boycott the tests. Sadtu, however, distanced itself from the violence resulting from recent protest action and school disruptions.
“The union welcomes the order issued by the high court, where the employer claimed that Sadtu was acting unlawfully in their protest against systemic tests in the province.
“It reiterates our position that our members should not act in a violent or unlawful manner in exercising our legal right to protest against policies of the employer when we view them not to be of interest to improved education outcomes in the province,” the union’s secretariat said.
Cosas could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Education MEC Debbie Schäfer said in a statement that Sadtu’s call to boycott the tests was an attack on the rights of children.
Schäfer said 146 schools either did not write or complete the tests, which concluded earlier this week due to disruptions, and they are expected to participate on November 3.
“Acting Justice McCurdie ordered that the WCED provide the names of the schools concerned to Sadtu and Cosas, and ordered Sadtu and Cosas to instruct their members not to engage in unlawful activity in protesting against systemic testing.
“Unlawful activity includes disrupting systemic testing at the schools concerned. Such activity would include preventing access to the school premises, intimidation and any other activity which prevents systemic testing from taking place,” Schäfer said.