BOSETU To Make Recommendations To Education Ministry
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Monday January 25, 2021 17:43
Since schools opened, some have been registering cases of the deadly virus with both teachers and students testing positive. In some instances, the teachers who had tested positive had mingled with other teachers but contact-tracing was not done, which made others get even more concerned that the spread will be rampant.
The Monitor has learnt that the Monday meeting will make some recommendations to the Ministry of Basic Education on how the situation should be handled or call for a shutdown of schools. “We are waiting for reports from our Health Safety, which is compelling it and our representatives from different schools to make reports on school readiness and confirmed cases in schools. The reports will help us to advise the Ministry on how best the issue could be handled. If the reports show that things are not looking good as we had thought then we will advise that schools be closed temporarily so that new strategy be made. Yes, we have been told about cases at Letlhakane Senior School, Sefhare Junior Secondary School and New Xade Primary School. At Sefhare we have written to the District Health Team(DHT) to express our displeasure on how they are handling the cases,” BOSETU secretary-general Tobokani Rari said on Saturday.
The letter written to Sefhare DHT on January 19, 2021, by Rari reads: “Teachers at the above school, who are our members of Botswana Sectors of Educators Trade Union (BOSETU) indicate to us that there is a confirmed COVID-19 case at their institution. They further indicate that the person/officer concerned was before being confirmed positive, closely interacted with other officers and students during her course of duty, as she had skipped the home isolation recommendations as a contact.
Teachers at the school further indicate to us that two more officers have since been recommended to self-isolation after showing signs of COVID while they await being tested. The fear that is developing among teachers and the rest of the Sefhare JSS community is that they might be a widespread outbreak within the institution and that their welfare, health-wise, is at great risk.” “They are further concerned that your department seems to have relaxed the precautionary standards by not extending the isolation measure, the contact-tracing process to the rest of the school community and by not closing the institution for the fumigation/disinfection process to take place.”
The union secretary further advised DHT that union their mandate is to protect and promote the welfare of the members, we take a dim view of the relaxation of the basic COVID-19 precautionary and preventative protocols.
He said dropping the standard of health team would expose not only our the members to COVID-19 but also the general populace. They also requested DHT to isolation measures to the rest of the Sefhare Jss community and carry out a contact tracing process on the rest of the community of the institution.
Also, they asked the order for the closing down of the institution for proper disinfection process to be carried out. On January 12, 2021, Letlhakane Senior Secondary School had 32 confirmed cases, one active case (teacher), 33 recovered, 28 students were on quarantined in school premises, two quarantined at Orapa isolation areas, two quarantined at their homes and one teacher quarantined at home.