ELRC 202324 Annual Report

EDUCATION LABOUR RELATIONS COUNCIL | 2023/24 ANNUAL REPORT

dealing with appointment and promotion issues in the education sector. The guidelines ensure consistent application of the law relating to appointments and promotions in the education sector and contribute to stability in the labour environment. Monitoring and enforcement of the implementation of collective agreements Through its provincial Chambers, the Council continues to ensure that the implementation of collective agreements is monitored. In instances where this is not done, the provisions of the Council’s constitution are invoked to ensure enforcement. Proactive measures in place to deal with disputes: • The Council established dispute prevention committees in all provincial Chambers to analyse statistics on disputes received monthly from head office in a bid to address these issues and to identify training needs, where necessary. • The Council continues to conduct training for dispute resolution practitioners and panellists to ensure that they operate effectively and are kept abreast of current labour developments. • The Council’s constitution is aligned with the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) Rules and the LRA. • The Council recruits panellists, intermediaries and interpreters continuously to manage the growing number of dispute referrals. 2.2.1 Teacher Well-Being Teacher well-being has always been one of the priorities of the international and domestic education sector, even prior to the outbreak of the pandemic. In terms of the pandemic, UNESCO made the following call: “We call on governments to protect teachers’ safety, health, and well-being, as well as their employment, to continue improving teachers’ working conditions, and to involve teachers and their representative organizations in the COVID-19 educational response and recovery.” - Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO At the same time, the DBE supports the delivery of public health services and monitors the performance of the educators’ health system by providing timely advice, research and administrative support. Education well-being is fundamental to the overall health of an individual, which was affected by the outbreak of the pandemic. In addition to the effects of the pandemic, many teachers have had to deal with challenges that impact their well-being, such as physical or emotional trauma following specific incidents. Teacher mental health and well-being have long been issues in South African schools, due to teacher workload, overcrowding, to name but a few., This continues to be a cause of concern for all affected educators. The scourge of the Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) exacerbated the stress and anxiety that accompanied the school timetable differentiation and other related COVID-19 challenges that affect educators daily. Amid these challenges, the DBE and the teachers’ unions – both being a part of the ELRC - realised a need to address the well-being of educators and to capacitate them regarding different methods of dealing with it. To address these challenges, the DBE collaborated with the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU), the National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa (NAPTOSA), Suid-Afrikaanse Onderwysers Unie (SAOU), the National Teachers Union (NATU) and the Professional Educators Union (PEU) in hosting the first Ministerial Virtual Seminar on Teacher Well-Being on 23 July 2021, following the roll-out of the Education Sector National and Provincial vaccination programme, and presented papers on the subject. 2.2 Collective Bargaining Services

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