Today's Labour News

The Citizen reports that SA medical specialists, doctors, engineers, mechanics and teachers have been urged by the authorities not to fret about the Cuban specialists that have been brought into the country and paid billions for their skills.

Department of Basic Education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said the Cuban teachers were hired to boost the mathematics and science division in the country. “If you looked at the research that was done and the improvement we made to the system, it was because of the contribution they [the Cuban specialists] made,” he said during an interview with Power FM. Mhlanga argued that the specialists were tasked with different activities: “Some of them helped teachers with different strategies of teaching maths in a way that would make an improvement. Others worked in district offices for the creation of capacity for our colleagues to be able to work.” But, Matakanye Matakanya of the National Association of School Governing Bodies slammed the decision to import the Cubans. He said: “The manner in which it was done was wrong because there are South African teachers who are qualified and unemployed who I thought should be trained by the Cuban teachers so that we have the skill at home and don’t need to import them. Why were these skills not taken to tertiary level where the teachers were produced? This would prevent the recurring problem of unemployed teachers who lacked skills.”   Twenty-four engineers were imported from Cuba three months ago to repair and assist with SA’s ailing water infrastructure at a cost of R64 million. There are also 28 Cuban doctors at a cost of R32.5 million to fight Covid. Cuban mechanics and technicians were also brought in for repairs at the SA National Defence Force at a cost of nearly R1 billion.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Asanda Matlhare at The Citizen
• Read too, State slammed for employing Cuban educators, at SowetanLive

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page