BCA academic staff withhold results

Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Friday December 11, 2015 16:22

This comes after the staff petitioned the management about the failed 35 percent allowance increment and the management did not respond to the petition.

BCA public relations officer, Onkgopotse Moreri, confirmed that the academic staff has withheld the end of semester results demanding payment. She said that the academic staff dropped the bombshell on management during a faculty board meeting on Tuesday.

“It is true that the academic staff have refused to release results during a board meeting on Tuesday demanding to be paid the money they were promised. But since the issue is new to management, they are still trying to absorb it and find ways to resolve it. But since Tuesday there has not been any new developments in relation to that,” she said.

Moreri said that the governing council and the school management has convened to discuss the matter.

Asked how this might affect the publishing of the results for the students, she said at the moment it is hard to tell if the scheduled release of the results will be affected. “The result could have been disclosed at the faculty meeting on Tuesday for consideration before being presented to the University of Botswana Senate on December 15, 2015 but honestly I am not sure when they will be published. We are closing on the 16th so really I don’t know,” she said.

She stated the governing board and the management will make a decision on what happens next.

“Negotiations will come up with a resolution. They (academic staff) are also eagerly waiting. When this was first announced that they will be paid money, the school had requested for some money but as you know, final decisions are made at higher levels and maybe it didn’t go as anticipated,” explained Moreri.      

A source disclosed to Mmegi that efforts by school management to try to convince the academic staff to release the students’ results were not successful.

“The academic staff feels that the management is not taking them seriously since they have been owed for months. We are not convinced that the government will release the P32 million which it had long promised the school,” the source said.