Students in uneasy return to FCTVE
Pini Bothoko | Wednesday March 30, 2016 16:20
The college was closed early last month after students angrily protested the credibility of their courses, unhygienic food and their exclusion from the payment of allowances.
After the two-week closure, the Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD) reopened the college, but said all students should sign readmission letters, which included clauses on how they would channel their grievances in future.
FCTVE SRC president, Tebo Thobogang said students were disappointed to find that their concerns had not yet been addressed.
“Students are not happy at all because we have realised that still some of our courses are not accredited, we eat unhygienic foods and unlike other government sponsored college students, we are not given the monthly allowances. “This has been a concern for years and students have been pleading for answers from the school management for years but to date there is no any valid answer,” said Thobogang.
The student leader said the readmission clauses and the atmosphere at the institution had made students wary of expressing their displeasure.
“The two-week closure of the school has intimidated students and they have vowed not to go on strike again as they fear to be expelled and hence lose the opportunity to learn,” said Thobogang.
“The re-admission letters that students filled in had certain conditions on how they should express their concerns and this threatened students.
“Even the MoESD’s decision to close down the college for almost two weeks pushed students to the limit as they now fear participating in strikes again.”
Thobogang revealed that the SRC had sought advice from lawyers on the clauses in the readmission letters and these had been found to be benign.
“We had to seek advice from some of the local lawyers concerning the signing of the re-admission letters and they advised us to comfortably sign them because they did not have any binding conditions on us,” said Thobogang.
The SRC leader said their hopes for redress at the college now lay with the Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA) who publicly promised to follow the allegations of unaccredited courses.
“We (SRC) held a meeting with BQA recently and they promised to follow this matter up. We hope that our concerns over unaccredited courses will be resolved eventually ,” said Thobogang.
Things will improve, promised the college’s acting principal Mooketsi Nfanyana, who told Mmegi that the Department of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (DTVET) would soon address the students’ grievances.
“The MoESD together with DTVET will soon hold a meeting to discuss students’ concerns and map the way forward on this matter,” Nfanyana said.
Nfanyana said a meeting was held last week Monday where the college management advised students to always pass their grievances through the SRC and avoid violent demonstrations.