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Teachers News Aug 2009 : Editorial

When Bunwaree dances to the tune of fake unions.

Since his assuming office in November 2008, Bunwaree has had no single visible achievement to his credit. In order to fill the vacuum around him and in a bid to disorienting the opposition, Bunwaree is adamant upon his controversial endeavour to abolish private tuition in STD IV as from January 2010. Upon the GTU offering utter resistance to Bunwaree’s vitrious moves, the latter has found no other alternative than to explore darker avenues in order not to become the laughing stock of his colleagues and the population at large. It is in this line that he has endeavoured to stoop to the fake GPTU’s feet. GPTU is bent to criminalizing teachers and the practice of private tuition, hoping that its devilish proposal will touch the heart and catch the eyes of Bunwaree who in return will grant them recognition under the provisions of the new ERA. Hence Bunwaree’s historical move to convene GPTU, a non-recognised union, to an official meeting on Saturday 11 July at IVTB house. Indeed Bunwaree has made history in the sense that he has been the first Minister of Education since independence to having convened a fake union officially in the presence of his high officials to discuss general matters including his plea for abolition of STD IV tuition. Bunwaree has taken everybody by surprise. Even his officers were flabbergasted upon taking stock that a non-recognised union was being called at the table of negotiations, more so convened by an ex-minister of Labour and Industrial Relations. The officers have been asking themselves about how to proceed now on: will the GPTU be convened at all official meetings. Will the decisions arrived at during the “illegal meeting” be contemplated as official decisions?

The GTU reserves the right to challenge the decisions taken at the meeting which it rightly considers to be illegal in Supreme Court. What’s more surprising is the fact that the minister met the official GTU only one week before (i,e on 4 July) and vehemently insisted that GPTU which doesn’t satisfy the established criteria won’t gain recognition and that the ministry should not cater for it. What caused the Minister to so rapidly change his position radically? Is it because GTU refused to kowtow to him upon the issue of abolition of STD IV tuition? Is it true that Bunwaree is trying by all means to intimidate the GTU, especially its president? Bunwaree thinks he holds the magic stick and that with the support of the fake GPTU he will achieve his goal. In fact, he is labouring under false premises and is embedded in atrocious confusion. GTU will neither retreat nor surrender. And it has to gather further momentum to combat the devilish GPTU which has sold its soul to Bunwaree in its quest for recognition which it will not acquire ultimately. It appears to be bereft of a vision beyond the pursuit of its cheap goal of winning recognition by hook or by crook. GTU has rarely failed in any of its endeavours in favour of its members. Teachers still own fresh in mind the mass demonstration in the streets of Port Louis on 29 March 2008 to preserve seniority for DHT promotion, although GPTU and Lollbeeharry campaigned hard against same. Their abdicating to the employer did not prevent the GTU to succeed all the way. Teachers will have to stay united and mobilized. GTU is contemplating calling a mass meeting in the weeks to come in order to show to the authorities teachers’ wild discontent and frustration. Will teachers forget that the psychopath qualified tuition as being a crime against humanity and childhood? Will teachers forget that he recently averred that “even pre-school infants are being broiled in the tuition factory?”. Will teachers and the union forgive the minister to so widely and largely opening his arms for an organization which has caused so much harm to the entire teaching profession?

GTU will not depart from its initial position on supporting private tuition which is evidently not a new phenomenon. The minister’s appeal to the GTU has without doubt fallen in deaf ears. It will equally denounce the motives of few who, being dead against private tuition, are proposing for new legislation to ban same. The Ministry should imperatively allow those parents who are concerned about their children do what they consider to be the best in the circumstances. The ministry should in no way deter the liberty of parents to offer private tuition to their kids in line with their constitutional rights. Bunwaree has inadvertently succumbed to GPTU’s proposal of inclusive pedagogy and the nonsensical argument that children should be given the opportunity to live their lives. As it has been rightly put out, how many of the children who stay away from private tuition lead a marvelously healthy life, who live to the full their “children’s lives” as opposed to the lives of the tuition takers? Do they turn out to be better adults? The Minister should rise above to chase and condemn the inherent hypocrisy of his “interlocuteurs” be they the GPTU leaders who give tuition, reap huge sums, but claim that it serves no purpose or the ministry’s officials/advisers who subtly whisper to the Minister’s ears that tuition should be abolished whilst being so thoroughly involved in big tuition business in the backyard.

J. Seegum
President