Teacher unions Angry Over DBE Withdrawal of Incentive
Teacher unions are not pleased with the decision made by the Department of Basic Education to stop the teacher incentives policy. The decision was gazetted by Minister Angie Motshekga.
Those who received the incentive are unhappy with the withdrawal of it as they have depended on it to make ends meet.
Nkosana Dolopi, the Deputy General Secretary of SADTU, pointed out that the rise in fuel, food and electricity makes it very difficult for workers to manage and without the incentive, these workers will struggle even more.
Dolopi finds the decision to be inconsiderate and stated that “it is always unfortunate that the workers” are affected by “the mistakes that were committed by the ruling class and the crisis that we find ourselves in where the government is now trying to recover money from it’s a man-made crisis of corruption, poor administration, and wasteful expenditure instead of getting this money from those who stole from the public first”.
He believes that it is unfair that these people have to suffer as they are already struggling to afford transport to work and extra accommodation when working at these rural schools.
“I think we should not accept this as workers we must challenge them and take this up with them in whatever way,” said Dolopi.
According to the Deputy General Secretary of SADTU, finding good teachers to work at rural schools is very difficult without an incentive as they will be moving to communities with no electricity, water and sanitation.
Dolopi believes that by withdrawing the incentives school children are also being affected as the best teachers will not be able to continue teaching at these rural schools.
