Civil servants toyi-toyi at Kamhlushwa stadium in support of a better pay

Many parents view this as a welcome gesture as learners will be afforded ample time to make up for lost time.

They also feel hard done by, by both educators and government who allowed their pay dispute to spill over to the class room.

There have also been subtle suggestions that either the government or educators and their unions should be taken to court for denying learners their right to education. This being an expensive legal exercise, it seems an unlikely option and parents look just too happy to lap up the department of education’s recovery plan.

Most teacher formations and their members are not amused at all. They are incensed with government’s insistence on applying the ‘no work no pay’ rule.

They question the ethics behind government’s insistence on the principle yet government seems to be keeping a blind eye on the voluntary extra classes which educators have conducted over the years. “They are extra careful about the 28 days of no work as compared to the 28 years of non-paid teaching that we do in our life spans as educators,” one educator intimated on condition of anonymity.

Following up on his argument he mentioned DD Mabuza Comprehensive School and Mehlobovu High School as two examples of selflessness on the part of educators. For the record, both schools notched impressive matric results last year after educators, parents and learners decided on an unorthodox route of camps.

If teacher unions and government don’t reach a compromise, scenes such as this one will be common

That they were awarded the status of the most improved school along with others is now yesterday’s news.

That most learners smiled all the way into institutions of tertiary education and that educators never received any salary increases for that is also history.

This forms the basis for the argument which unions are advancing.

If their members were to work beyond their call of duty then they need to be rewarded. They also argue that the implementation of the integrated quality management system (IQMS) has failed to recognize and reward educator performance because of its apparent inherent defects as it links performance with teacher development.

For unions it also seems to be a question of trying to recoup some of the losses they have incurred during the recent round of salary negotiations. Other professions were quick to accept government’s offer at 7.25 percent because at that point most of them had already made gains in terms of government’s intent to pay them for overtime duties. Educators are not covered under this dispensation and therein lies the dissatisfaction. So much sentiment is attached to the education profession with others even intimating that it should be a calling that requires practitioners to place service ahead of benefits. Not so, unions argue. Whereas educators need to show high levels of commitment, this should not suggest exploitation. As matters stand, the South African Democratic Teachers’