Opinion Column
Managers in TVET colleges are government functionaries much as the officials in any other state institutions and parastatals throughout the country. They are bound to act within the parameters of the administrative law, which affects the lives of millions of people on a daily basis.
Thousands of students and employees in the form of lecturers suffer the barbaric and illegal maladministration unleashed by managers. Majority of these managers are not only oblivious to the rule of law, but are brazen and uncultured.
Apart from flouting the law for personal benefit: interpreting legal provisions in a biased way while acting in an unholy unity against anything saint. It is often a case of a junior against a group of unwittingly same illiterate managers. These are managers who may not understand their relationship with the powers bestowed on them.
Recently a college lecturer woke up to a shock of her life when a senior official in the college where she works blatantly refused her the right to cross transfer with another lecturer in another college in the country. To the poor official nothing is out of the normal; however, to the unfortunate young and female lecturer is a miscarriage of justice.
The content and context of the denial are really telling the extent to which mangers in TVET college lack basic understanding of the legal environment in which they operate. In the case of the poor female lecturer denied her right to exercise her choice and preferences, the misinformed official told the lady she would only cross transfer with apparently a person of her age, not a person senior to her chronological age.
The question of age is neither here nor there. Any reference to age amount to officials trying to amend the legal provisions provided in both the constitution of South Africa and the law of public administration valid to all government institutions.
It is of a grave concern that the Department of Higher Education and Training does not have mechanisms in place for employees at TVET colleges to resolve such idiotic culture born of pure ignorance before intoxicating the entire environment. There will be those staff members who will blindly identify with management irrespective of wrong decisions the management takes. The other group, the antagonist, will be those who would be seeking the truth in vain.
A great veil in the eyes of college managers is that which makes them not to see beyond their beliefs. It shouldn’t be lost to the learned that managers of TVET colleges should be selfless individuals with a sense of patriotism to the well fare of the nation, not petty personal considerations which have nothing to do with nation building.
It is imperative for TVET mangers to at least acquit themselves with the laws that govern their work places not for mere compliance only; but because when justly implemented, the law in work places like TVET colleges have a positive tendency to free staff from unnecessary stress and frustrations.