Durban — Teachers under Adult Basic Education and Training (Abet) are camping outside the Higher Education Department’s offices in Durban, demanding to be paid their salaries.
The teachers, who claimed they had not been paid for months, started camping outside the offices on Monday and continued the protest on Tuesday.
They said they decided to come and demand answers from the officials because they were not attending to their grievances. A teacher, who said she was last paid eight months ago, accused officials of playing hide-and-seek with them. She said every time they enquired about their payments they were told to send claims, which were not attended to.
She said they would camp outside the offices until they were paid. She accused officials of being arrogant after they were locked out on Monday and refused entry to the offices.
“We stayed here until late on Monday, but our delegation was eventually allowed in, so today (on Tuesday) we have come here again to receive feedback.
“We will not go back home without being paid our salaries. Some of the Abet schools have been closed due to non-payment of salaries as no one will work for eight months without a salary,” said a teacher.
Teachers said their families were starving and were now being harassed by creditors. Some said they had received threats from banks that their vehicles would be repossessed.
Higher Education and Training spokesperson Ishmael Mnisi said he would liaise with officials in the province to establish what was happening.
Abet previously fell under the Department of Basic Education (DBE) prior to being moved to Higher Education and Training, where they were placed under TVET colleges, and were now community education centres under Minister Blade Nzimande.
The SA Democratic Teachers Union, which represents most of the teachers, said it had already intervened on behalf of its members. The provincial secretary, Nomarashiya Caluza, said after the union intervened it realised that there was a miscommunication between teachers and the officials.
She said the problem arose when Abet was moved from the DBE to the Higher Education and Training Department, which meant that teachers should also move to work under the Higher Education Department. She said this was not explained properly to teachers.
“In our engagements with the Department of Higher Education officials, we were told that teachers must either choose to remain under the Basic Education Department or move to Higher Education, which meant they must resign from Basic Education and be fully employed under Higher Education. Some teachers did not understand this and continued working as Abet teachers while on the Basic Education payroll, which was the reason they were not paid for Abet work,“ said Caluza.
She said the government regarded that as “double parking”, where you get paid by the government for doing two jobs. She added that the matter was resolved and the department agreed to pay for those months that they had worked and then they would have to choose where they wanted to belong.
One of the teachers, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being victimised, said no one had explained the new procedure to them. He said he doubted teachers under the Basic Education Department would resign from their jobs because, under Abet, teachers were paid stipends based on the hours they worked.
Daily News