Teacher union-state relations in South Africa: caught in a time warp?

Abstract

This paper offers a simple argument. If teacher union-state relations are less adversarial, both parties can devote the requisite time, energy and resources to improving education quality. Devoting more time to cooperation will ensure that complex policy challenges, such as sexual abuse, HIV-AIDS and violence in schools are tackled in a concerted way. Several policy options are proposed of which the most important is a revamping of SACE to focus on empowering teachers and their organizations to have a stronger and more sustained role in policy formulation and implementation.