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Post-Apartheid educational restructuring
Post-apartheid educational reform cannot be understood and analysed without considering the context of international events and the consolidation of neo-liberal educational policies globally. Tikly (2001) argues that existing accounts of globalisation and education are western-centred and based on an analysis of globalisation in the developed world and is therefore less relevant for low-income developing countries. Globalisation, he suggests, has shifted the core-periphery relationship beyond relationships only between nations, but is increasingly creating new core-periphery relationships within nations, and exacerbating existing ones. The core now does not only
include the wealthy nations, but also the elites in the poorer nations. At the same time, the periphery increasingly includes the poor in the developed world.
Tikly maintains that globalisation is multi-dimensional (with economic, political, cultural and social aspects) and these aspects are often contradictory. In the developing world globalisation is often equated with economic globalisation and specifically with structural adjustment policies. This focus on economic globalisation limits understanding of the impact of political, cultural and other aspects of globalisation on societies, and education systems in particular. The participation of (governing) elites in the neo-liberal project and the growing gap it opens up between the rich and the poor, means that the state has to convince the people that the policies it pursues in the name of globalisation are legitimate. If the state is unable to do this, there will be a legitimation crisis. Offe (1985) argues that the state in capitalism has two often contradictory functions: (a) it has to support capital accumulation; and (b) it has to legitimise capital accumulation through maintaining the political support of those disadvantaged by it, by alleviating the negative effects of private capital accumulation. When the legitimacy of the state comes into question (Habermas, 1976) the state reverts to “scientific and rational” models legitimised by experts that reduce complex political issues to manageable technical ones. This provides valuable insights into the technical/rational model of the teacher rationalisation programme, where a complex political issue was reduced to a technical exercise through the utilisation of technical foreign and private sector “experts”. Fairbrother (2000) has referred to these processes as “depoliticisation”, noting that the state formally disengages from a range of issues, reducing such issues to technical ones, as if they are somehow not related to the structuring of class relations in society.
The history of the trade union movement in South Africa
In order to locate teacher unionism in the Western Cape, it is important to reflect on the history of trade unionism in South Africa. South Africa has a long history of trade unionism dating back to the craft unions formed on the goldfields of the Witwatersrand by immigrant white mineworkers in the 1880s. These craft unions were mostly formed to protect white workers against competition from cheap African labour on the mines. The building blocks of the apartheid labour relations system were laid down on the mines in the 1920s when black workers were excluded from participation in a collective bargaining system. The Industrial Conciliation Act of 1924 excluded African workers from the legal definition of ‘employee’. A formal job colour bar was also established on the mines. This created a dual labour relations system, which was reinforced and strengthened by the NP in 1953 and 1956, which included the extension of the job colour bar to other spheres of the economy.
The first trade union federation to organise black workers was the Council of Non European Trade Unions (CNETU) in the 1940s. The first non-racial union federation, formed in 1955, was the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU). SACTU emerged out of the general growth in political activity linked to the Defiance Campaign of the Congress Movement in the early 1950s and aligned itself politically with the Congress Movement led by the ANC. SACTU grew to a membership of around 55 000 in the early 1960s, before the federation was crushed by military and police repression and the union movement was forced into exile. SACTU was however never officially banned by the NP. During the 1960s Coloured and Indian workers were allowed to join registered trade unions, and although there were no legal restrictions prohibiting African workers from joining trade unions, shop-floor conditions made it almost impossible to sustain worker organisations during this period. The security police maintained close surveillance of trade unions and many trade unionists were detained, banned or tortured to death in detention (Webster and Adler,1999a).
SADTU in the Western Cape
SADTU Western Cape region was launched on 20 April 1991. The region was severely constrained by the refusal of the various racial education departments to recognise it, as well as the decision of the CTPA not to join the new union. The withdrawal of the CTPA from the teacher unity process meant that the new union in the Western Cape was numerically very small. In fact numerically the union in the Western Cape was smaller than the Soweto branch of the then Transvaal (Gauteng) region. The Western Cape SADTU region claimed a membership of about 2 500 at its launch (SADTU Launch, Pamphlet, undated), but even this figure appears to be exaggerated. The new union was significantly restricted to the Cape Peninsula with limited support in the rural areas (“platteland”) of the Western Cape, where the CTPA held sway. The union also had a very limited presence in primary schools. Also, in the Western Cape the new union was rivalled by the small, but influential Teachers’ League of South Africa (TLSA).
The TLSA was a small left wing teachers’ organisation that organised exclusively amongst the coloured intelligentsia on the Cape Flats, especially amongst its teachers. It had a history of critical Trotskyist analysis and often advanced its positions on a range of educational topics through its mouthpiece the Journal of the TLSA. Its history was closely tied to the history of socialist politics in the greater Cape Town region and provided fertile space for socialist debate and discussion in the leftwing teacher underground during the 1970s and 1980s. Due to its vehement opposition to the disruption of schooling and its staunch rejection of the politics of “collaboration” at any level, the TLSA often refused to engage with any oppositional educational movements. This earned them the derogatory description of being “armchair revolutionaries”. (Interview, Geyer, 2006) As referred to above, there was also a close link between the TLSA and the New Unity Movement, a small Trotskyist grouping of leftwing coloured intellectuals.
CHAPTER 1 Introduction
Policy Continuity in the new South Africa
The role of teacher organisations in education reform
Post apartheid teacher organisations
CHAPTER 2 Literature Review
Neo-liberal globalisation
Trade unions and public sector restructuring
Globalisation and education
Post-Apartheid educational restructuring
CHAPTER 3 The Research Methodology
Data Collection
Interpretation, Validity and Reliability
CHAPTER 4 Negotiations, Compromise and Rationalisation
The Western Cape region: A brief historical overview
The history of the trade union movement in South Africa
The history of teacher unionism in the Western Cape: An overview
SADTU in the Western Cape
The shifting political terrain of the 1990s
Rationalisation of coloured education
Towards the first national teachers’ strike
Strike Action in the Western Cape
A New Deal
Rationalisation continues
The Post-Apartheid Education System
Post Apartheid Education Restructuring
Stakeholder Forums and the Role of Labour
Extension of labour rights to teachers
Resolution 3 of 1996
Voluntary Severance Package (VSP)
Redeployment
SADTU response to the resolution in the Western Cape
The Western Cape Parents, Teachers and Students Forum (WCPTSF)
People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) and the WCPTSF
The implementation of Resolution 3/96
The implementation of Resolution 3 of 1996 continues
The finalisation of rationalisation
CHAPTER 5 Conclusion
