Let Us Learn to Play

The historical origins of black teacher unionism in South Africa can be traced back to 1879 when the Native Educational Association (NEA) was established. This was a response by black teachers who sought a collective approach to address common problems that affected them as a result of economic marginalisation. However, the nature of teacher unions at the time and during the apartheid era reflected a deeply polarised society. Teacher unions were formed along the existing racial and linguistic divisions. Prior to 1913 all teachers in the Cape Colony, wanting to belong to an organised grouping, could affiliate to the South African Teachers’ Association (SATA). According to a coloured executive committee member of SATA’s Cape Division, Henry Gordon, most principals of mission schools refused to join. After the School Board Act came into effect in 1905, Francis Brutus, principal of the St Andrew’s Mission School in Ceres, drew up a prospectus with the intention of establishing a ‘Coloured Teachers Association’. Due to a lack of funds, however, the prospectus could not be published. In 1912, ‘A Coloured Teacher’ wrote in a local newspaper about a need for a ‘Coloured Teachers Association’ because the lot of the mission school teacher is not a very bright one’.