children at home while urging teachers to report for duty on October 1st. He made it clear that “the unions have crossed the line” and that “I will send a letter to them regarding this issue.” Minister Currie explained that he did not receive the information directly but via an unofficial source. That also shocked him because shortly before the start of the new school year, his ministry had talks with the unions. On September 29th parties talked for many hours to discuss the new school year and the execution of the agreement that was reached in June. According to Currie, the unions had asked him to open the schools without the students on October 1st but after a discussion he decided to commence with the lessons and to let the students attend classes on October 1st. That is mainly why he was unpleasantly surprised by the call of the unions. The unions explained that they wanted the schools to start with the teachers only so that they could make an inventory of the shortage of teachers and materials and of all of the other problems at each school. They also explained that at schools where there is a shortage of teachers there would not be enough teachers to attend to the students.