Today, 4 March 2016, KNUT SG made a long speech concerning the latest issues affecting teachers.
Sossion gave a very elaborate statement on the issue below. Here is the Sossion's statement (Verbatim).
"We are totally opposed to performance contracts because performance contracting is a corporate idea that has been toyed around the world by corporate institutions to maximize efficiency of workers but it is not applicable to teaching. Teaching is a completely different career. Aah, where teachers affect the learner.
[Teaching] is an affective process of working that requires a completely different approach that requires the heart of the teacher, the commitment of the teacher and the happiness of the teacher and the preparedness of the teacher which cannot be measured [in] just the same way you cannot measure the work of a lawyer.
It is not possible [to measure the work of a lawyer] because when you look at the number of cases that a lawyer succeeded or lost... You cannot measure the work of a doctor because you are dealing with patients and sickness and you cannot definitely measure the work of a pastor. You cannot measure the work of a teacher.
This corporate thing was tried in developed countries on teachers and it failed and those countries are shifting to focus on three things to deliver on quality education. To raise enough quality teachers and build the capacity of teachers and support the teachers, improve the quality of teaching and learning tools and improve the quality of learning environment to achieve quality education in totality.
We cannot allow this country to walk in the wrong direction because some people are mis-advising Government.
The document that has been rolled out has been rolled out outside the legislative and the constitutional framework because we were not consulted as a union. Even if it was good, the procedure is that we must negotiate and agree because it is a major shift and variation of terms of service.
The way Government has approached it is unconstitutional and illegal and eeh we've registered a labour dispute. It is a matter that we will continue pursuing at the arbitration level."