Children’s interests paramount

Two major problems hold some teachers’ unions back from helping us build an excellent education system.

First, they protect bad teachers from the consequences of their poor performance, which means that our children have endure mediocre teaching for much longer than necessary.

Second, when negotiating with the government for higher salaries and benefits, they often employ disruptive tactics that threaten the children’s constitutional rights to a decent education.

While both actions stem from reasonable positions – with unions wanting to zealously represent their members and achieve greater leverage in wage negotiations – they can lead to perverse outcomes when pursued without any sense of limits.

No doubt most union members would agree that we need to either retrain, discipline or dismiss weak teachers.

We can’t just let them go on without some sort of corrective action.

And surely they must agree that students’ educations should not be held to ransom for the sake of a higher wage percentage. That defeats the purpose of their whole mission.

I say “surely”, but in reality some of the larger unions operate as if there is nothing they will not do to protect their members or secure their demands.

What we need is for unions to balance the obligations they have to their members with the rights of their pupils.

This would change their calculation regarding how to deal with bad teachers and how to negotiate with the state.

So how can they do this?

First, unions should, of course, support their members.

But if evidence is presented to the leadership that shows that a teacher is performing poorly, hindering pupils’ success rather than enhancing it, then it should participate in a constructive response to change that.

It should push for remedial training to help develop that teacher.

It should assist the teacher with counselling if the poor performance is caused by an emotional or personal problem.

And it should also be willing to recommend dismissal if the teacher is recalcitrant or simply incapable of improvement.

Ultimately, unions have to recognise the constitutional injunction that: “A child’s best interests are of paramount importance in every matter concerning the child.”

That’s not always easy, and it may sometimes conflict with the instincts of the union to protect their members.

But as we know, in every other industry, poor performers face consequences for their weak performance.

Just not yet in education.

Ironically, in the places that we entrust our children’s education, we allow bad teachers to operate with impunity.

They face the meekest of disciplinary measures and can spend years under-educating our youth.

But this isn’t the only problem. Some unions also show a devastating lack of regard for their pupils when they use their education as a form of leverage in wage negotiations.

Unions have learnt that it is beneficial to threaten or carry out strikes when their employer is most vulnerable – such as just before matric exams.

This is when the government is most likely to accede to union demands, as it does not want to pay the political costs of poor matric results.

This is a twisted model of labour relations that pits teachers (“workers”) against the government (“management”).

Both parties end up treating children’s education as if it were a “product” or “commodity” around which labour issues are negotiated. But when teachers “down chalk”, they do not halt a production line of inanimate commodities; they endanger young people’s ability to get a decent education.

This is untenable.

We need a new model of labour relations between teachers and the government. Now that we live in a democratic country where the government is accountable through elections and the constitution, unions can negotiate with the state in new and innovative ways.

One alternative is for Parliament to legislate a negotiation cycle, with bargaining only in June and July, and once every three years. The agreement would specify three-year-long wage scales with steady and predictable increases.

The second alternative is for the 13 trade unions and professional associations in the education sector to form a federation, frame a charter of values, and begin to craft a robust system of self-regulation.

This is the hallmark of a mature, professional work sector, and something that unions should enthusiastically embrace.

We also need to link teacher performance to pay levels itself, which would make a great difference to quality teaching.

The DA supports the constitutional right to strike, but believes that those rights should be exercised in a way that does not undermine the rights of children.

Today I submitted a private member’s bill to Parliament, seeking to subject teachers’ right to strike to certain conditions aimed at protecting children’s right to learn. The bill stipulates that teachers should be required to teach at least a minimum number of hours during the strike.

It demands that a strike may only take place after consultation and agreement between the government, unions and school governing bodies.

And it stresses that severe penalties must be imposed on unions if their members engage in violence, looting, vandalism and intimidation.

These proposals may not affect all teachers’ unions, but given the gravity of our education crisis, I hope they will see the wisdom in the DA’s desire to push for greater accountability and quality in the teaching profession. In fact, I hope they will take a lead in promoting this with us.

l Wilmot James MP is the DA spokesman on basic education.