Low enrollment at TCE worries councilors
Pini Bothoko | Thursday August 27, 2015 17:07
Sedombo said that the decline in low enrollment at the teacher training college worries him because a similar situation occurred some years back at Lobatse College of Education and Francistown College of Education that closed down.
“You should explain to this council exactly what is going on. I suspect what happened at Lobatse and Francistown will soon happen at TCE. If the school is preparing for closure please warn us well in time. Even employees will be prepared to face job losses in the near future if they are warned,” said Sedombo.
Sedombo also said that should the school close it will be a major blow to the economy of Tonota. According to him locals benefit from the college as some employees and students rent houses from members of the community.
Sedombo raised his concerns when commenting on the District Development Committee (DDC) report presented by Tonota Sub-district’s Khumo Keeng.
Keeng, the district commissioner (DC), had explained that the college is expected to register about 50 students for year one in 2015, saying the enrollment is for the Business Studies and Home Economics subjects only. Answering Sedombo’s concern chief education officer Milidzani Ndona under the Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD) said that the college is not closing.
“We have not been informed about possible closure of the college. What I know is that the ministry has trained many teachers in the past and is currently faced with a high backlog to hire them. This is why the enrollment has been lowered,” said Ndona. Ndona said that the ministry is currently offering permanent jobs to trained teachers who completed their studies in 2008.
“We currently have shortage of teachers under Home Economics and Business Studies and will continue to enroll students under these departments only until there is need to enroll more students,” said Ndona.
According to the DC, currently the college has 390 students with 178 doing year two and 212 in year three. Keeng said the college has a staff complement of 106 with 11 of the 106 employees on study leave. In addition the college has 16 open vacancies.
“Four officers, two under Agriculture department, one under the English (department) and another under Religious Education (department) have been transferred. The Head of Department’s (HOD) contract under Educational Technology ended in June this year and he is yet to be replaced,” he said.
Keeng also noted that Home Economics, Setswana, Library Studies and Physical Education are understaffed.