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Chairperson of proceedings
President of Naptosa, Mr Eliam Biyela
Honoured guests, including
The President and General Secretary of the World Confederation of Teachers, and
The General Secretary of the Pan African Federation of Teachers' Trade Unions,
Ladies and gentlemen.

It is always a happy day when a family occupies a new home, and we rightly have a "house-warming" party to celebrate the occasion. The event signifies a new phase in the development of the family - possibly new members have been added, or the breadwinner has a new job that makes the house affordable. It is a break with a past, and a sign of a confident new future. Images of stability, growth and prosperity are indeed captured in such a moment.

I am sure that Naptosa feels the same kind of pride, confidence and maturity in this important occasion: the celebration of 10 years in existence, and the inauguration of this fine Naptosa House. You have placed the organisation on a sound footing, and are sending out a strong message that you intend to be a feature of the educational landscape in the future.

My Ministry welcomes this for many reasons. Firstly, I believe it is proper that just as we have a multi-party democracy in Parliament, so too we should have a "multiparty" civil society, which in the union context provides teachers with important choices about their membership affiliations. But I must say that often I cannot see any real difference between the three teacher unions. In the past, we were made to believe that some teacher organisations were more professional than the others. But more recently, all teacher unions seem to be as interested in teacher professionalism as they are in teacher unionism. I am therefore looking forward to the day when I am informed that all three-teacher unions have decided to relinquish their assumed ideological differences in favour of collaboration under the same banner and the same professional teacher organisation.

Secondly, I welcome this in the light of Naptosa's continuing commitment to professionalism among teachers, which is probably one of the biggest challenges we face at the moment. I must place on record my appreciation for this approach, which is not always a popular one, and your willingness to speak out in support of this view. I am not convinced your voice is heard often enough or loud enough, especially in the face of some of the reports we are receiving about the behaviour of teachers, but your stand is indeed an admirable one.

This stand has been reflected in your engagement with the curriculum revision process, and in the recent teacher education conference. I have had very positive comments about your responses to the curriculum revisions, which had all the marks of a significant consultation process among classroom practitioners - the teachers themselves. We are analysing all the submissions made, and will respond to these in due course, but I must thank you for the intensive work you have put into developing the statements, and in the comments made. These are all confirmation of your professional approach to matters.

You will be aware that the conference on teacher education held discussions on many issues, but with a primary focus on putting the teacher at the centre of educational change. One of the symbolic developments of the conference was the fact that the term "teacher" has been rehabilitated. This does not imply a rejection of the term "educator", which must be understood to include trainers, lecturers, tutors and many other sorts, but it does enable a much more focused approach to matters, with teachers being understood as those thousands of men and women who stand before classes of children every day.

The move is therefore not just semantic; we are taking the educator back to the classroom and to the job they have been trained to do. In doing so we can be more specific about this work, and the development needs they have in order to do it effectively? In many contexts you will be educators - including in the South African Council for Educators, which has a wide scope of coverage. But in your everyday practices and relationships you are teachers, with all the weight of history that that entails. Teaching has a fine and proud tradition, especially in this country, and it is a heritage, which we must not lose.

This was the sub-theme of the Teacher Education conference, and has been major focus of my Ministry over the past two years, How do we recapture the dignity and ethos of the profession, such that new recruits are attracted to it. On the one hand this is a numerical problem of supply and demand, especially in the context of HIV/AIDS. We do need new teachers, and we will need many more in the near future, of that there is no doubt.

But it is deeper than this: the challenge lies in our ability to recruit the brightest and the best minds into teaching, and not those who opt for it because there are no other possibilities for study or jobs. Again, let us invoke the proud tradition of teaching in this country. Consider how many of our national leaders - in politics and elsewhere - were once teachers. Think of the institutions that produced these leaders - Lovedale, Ohlange, Inanda Seminary, and many more - and remember that the real value of these institutions does not lie in the bricks and mortar of the buildings, but in the teachers, and the values they demonstrated and promoted.

Many of these values are contained in our Manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy, which we published recently. Each of these values has an associated "educational strategy" which could lead to their promotion in schools, and I must commend this book to every teacher in the country. It is a first for South Africa, and it is a first in the world. To the best of my knowledge (and I have spoken to Ministers from many countries) there are no education systems anywhere else in the world which place such a premium on a values orientation - especially at a time when so much education is becoming more instrumentalist and vocational.

These values were exemplified in the National Teacher Awards, which were held last week. The teachers that were nominated demonstrated these values in their everyday work - their commitment was not driven by material gains, but by the social capital they were preparing for our future. The pride that showed in the eyes of every award recipient was obvious, but is extended much further than that. The MECs and provincial heads, who were seated near to me, were at times unrestrained in their jubilation when one of "their teachers" scooped an award. And I have no doubt that in their schools, and their communities, these teachers will be heroes for many years to come. As Naptosa and the other unions all said, in their messages of support: "We salute you"!

Our campaign to reinsert values into education is a multi-faceted initiative. In the first place we want to make it part of the formal curriculum, so that learners will develop tolerance and understanding through all that they learn. The draft revised National Curriculum Statement has asserted this element even more strongly than in the former outcomes, and we trust that teachers will know and understand the need for this. Regrettably there are fundamentalists - mostly Christian fundamentalists - who object to tolerance and respect for others, in the belief that they alone are custodians of "the truth". In this day and age such a view of the world is an historical anachronism, and a teacher does a child no favours by pretending that this is the case. I intend to resist these right-wing conservative tendencies, and I will use the Constitution as the sole basis of my approach.

But we also want a values orientation to be part of the non-formal curriculum as well, so that pupils and teachers will develop behaviours that are consistent with our Constitution. In sports and cultural activities learners must appreciate the need to listen, respect and value themselves and others. And underlying all of this must be a profound sense of national pride. Not nationalistic, which leads to xenophobia and arrogance, but a deep seated love of this country and all its people.

The inauguration of your new home, after 10 years of existence, is a major milestone for Naptosa. As a federation, you have had to keep diverse interests within a common fold - and the political terrain has recently provided ample evidence of the difficulties of "alliance politics" in some quarters, where the somersault has been perfected as an art form. The key difference is that you have organised around a position of principle, and this makes the situation tenable. In your case, this principle has been one of professionalism, and it has been characterised by your unwavering commitment to put the child first. This is consistent with our Constitution, in which the fundamental rights of the child to education, to dignity and safety are prioritised over any socio-economic rights, which might exist. There can be no ambiguity when our Constitution states: "A child's best interests are of paramount importance in every matter concerning the child".

And so I wish you well in this new phase of your development. I look forward to your continued constructive engagement on policy, legislation and related matters. I expect you to criticise us whenever you believe we have lost direction, just as I expect you to support without fear where we have done the right thing. I enjoy an active partnership, not a passive one, or a reactive one. Bring me your ideas, your thoughts, your plans. I do receive the resolutions of many of your Congresses, but they tend to be "post facto" - commenting on developments that we have initiated. You must also be the innovators, the initiators, the leaders, and I urge you to share your professionally informed views on any matter with us, at the earliest possible opportunity. Together, we can make a difference.

Thank you for inviting the Ministry of Education to officiate at this function, and on behalf of all involved I take pleasure in unveiling the plaque to commemorate the occasion.

Issued by Ministry of Education

7 November 2001