Teachers boycott chess games
Chakalisa Dube | Tuesday February 25, 2014 23:43
The chess tourney, which was held over the weekend in Francistown, features almost all junior secondary schools and select primaries schools north of Dibete.
The Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD) recently announced that teachers will get paid 50 percent of overtime hours worked while the other 50 percent will be compensated through day offs.
The ministry cited budgetary constraints as the reason for the new move.
Most teachers have openly opposed the move and want to be paid 100 percent for overtime hours worked.
Motlhokomedi Tlhabano, the development director at Botswana Chess Federation (BCF) told Mmegi yesterday that they are yet to establish reasons for some schools not pitching up for the two-day tourney.
“The annual games usually attract 300 teenage boys and around 200 girls from junior secondary schools but the number has gone down to 200 and 102 respectively.
“For now we do not know exactly why some students did not turn up. We will try to establish that,” Tlhabano said.
“There are many junior schools in the northern part of the country. We were expecting junior schools from as far away as Shoshong, Rakops, Maun, Palapye, Serowe but none of them came.
“Only 23 schools (including six primary schools) turned up for the games. We were expecting the number of the schools to be almost double that,” he said.
A teacher at the event told Mmegi confidentially that some schools did not turn up because most teachers were against the new overtime payment structure by the ministry.
Tlhabano added though that there was an increase in the number of primary school participants.
“We usually have 10 participants from primaries but this year there were 50 which shows that interest in the sport at that level is growing,” he said.
Close to 30 teachers from the 23 schools supervised the weekend games.
Yesterday the Botswana Sector of Educators Union (BOSETU) secretary general Tobokani Rari said they recently issued a notice advising teachers that the overtime issue is between them and the employer according to labour regulations.
“Teachers are the ones who should decide if they should be paid 50 percent of overtime hours worked and 50 percent days off nothing should be imposed on them by the employer,” he said.
The low turnout at the chess games comes just a week after teachers abandoned athletics games in Mogoditshane immediately after the MoESD announced the new overtime pay structure.
The ministry’s spokesperson, Oarabile Sehularo referred all enquiries to Oupa Masesane, the director of operations in the North East region.
Masesane told Mmegi that he did not have readily available information on the matter.
The Morongwa tournament is used by junior secondary students as qualifiers for the National Championships scheduled for June 22.
BCF is also using this year’s Morongwa tournaments as practice and preparation for the World Youth Chess Championships that will be held in South Africa in September.