Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga does not bear any ill will towards some delegates who heckled her during an SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) congress in Boksburg on Joburg’s East Rand today.
“I’ve always felt very comfortable in the company of Sadtu... but after the strike the dust has not yet settled so I was not shocked,” the minister said on the sidelines of the Sadtu congress.
The recent public sector strike was characterised by hostility from the unions towards the government as the State refused to move on its wage offer.
Motshekga said good and bad relations were part of politics.
“We fight today and then we are friends tomorrow. It is the nature of things,” she said.
Some Sadtu delegates voiced their displeasure with Motshekga but they were shot down by Sadtu president Thobile Ntola.
“Whether you like it not comrade Angie is the Minister of Education, I think that you must accept,” he told them, adding that heckling and howling would not be allowed and would be dealt with.
Motshekga said Sadtu’s push for equal resources to be given to all pupils in schools formed part of government’s turnaround strategy for education.
“That is what informs our turnaround strategy... that African kids in particular have equal access to resources in school.”
