Pretoria - The Presidency says it is shocked and disappointed by the distortion of a section of President Jacob Zuma's 2012 State of the Nation Address by the Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille, on Human Rights Day.
According to a statement by the Presidency on Thursday, Zille, who was speaking in the Eastern Cape, misled the public by saying President Zuma had praised the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) even though they were in the middle of striking action in the Eastern Cape.
"That is simply not true," said the Presidency.
It said that the President did not mention Sadtu at all in the 2012 State of the Nation Address.
In his speech, President Zuma said: "Our call to teachers to be in school, in class, on time, teaching for at least seven hours a day remains pivotal to success. We thank the teacher unions for supporting this campaign."
In its statement on Thursday, the Presidency said: "We have no idea why Premier Zille has singled out Sadtu and left out other teacher unions. Teachers are an important stakeholder in the education of children. There are many teacher unions in the country and all play a critical role as a partner of government, in promoting the quality learning and teaching campaign.
"By teacher unions, the President was referring to all of them, the National Professional Teachers' Organisation of South Africa (NAPTOSA), Professional Educators Union (PEU), National Teachers Union (NATU), SADTU and the Suid Afrikaanse Onderwysers Unie (SAOU)."
The Presidency further explained that in the 2010 State of the Nation Address, Zuma also welcomed the support of the unions, when he said: "We welcome last month's statement by the three teacher unions, NAPTOSA, SADTU and SAOU, reaffirming their commitment to the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign from the beginning of 2010".
With regards to the Eastern Cape specifically, the Eastern Cape Provincial Government and Sadtu signed an agreement on 8 February to normalise the situation in the province and promote quality learning and teaching.
"The agreement was reached following a meeting between the Premier of the Eastern Cape, members of her Executive Council and Cosatu leadership. The President, who personally leads the Task Team working to ensure the nomalisation of education in the Eastern Cape, welcomed this development as we need all stakeholders to work together to ensure progress," said the Presidency.
It added that it was regrettable that Premier Zille decided to "mislead the nation in this manner".
