'Principal-teacher money dealings compromise delivery'
Lesedi Mkhutshwa | Friday May 17, 2019 12:51
Kebobone said this can compromise school heads when the time comes to rebuke their juniors when they are out of line. He was responding to head of department (HOD) from Mmei JSS, Dominic Mwansa who raised a worry that most of the school leaders are failing to reprimand their subordinates as they would be indebted to them.
He further said school heads would fail to act towards teachers who are not appropriately dressed as they are scared of upsetting their ‘creditors’. “If the same teacher is not dressed appropriately and is criticised by the school head, he or she may turn a deaf ear and use the unpaid small loan as an excuse for his or her action,” he said. Mwansa borrowed from the Botswana Police Service (BPS) as the BPS Act forbids superiors from taking loans from junior officers of the same force.
He also said that there was no clear margin of what is expected or not expected on teacher’s dress code.
“When we see teachers dressed in an indecent manner, especially women, how do we address them? Please address the issue of wearing union-printed shirts.”
He further raised a question on the issue of covering school books as many students use pictures semi-naked celebrities to cover their books. When responding to Mwansa’s statement, Kebobone said that it was not appropriate for school leaders to borrow money from their subordinates as it could hinder them from taking action against the lender. She said the lenders would do as they please with an attitude that the school head owes them, which in the long run would affect the performance of the students and school in general.
Kebobone also urged the school leadership to avoid strong interpersonal relationship with their junior staff. “If you start greeting them repeatedly, they are not going to respect you nor take you seriously when you reprimand them on their academic performance or conduct,” she said. “You need to avoid being close to them so that they can respect you and follow the code of conduct of the school for the betterment of the school performance.” When Kebobone spoke about dress code for teachers, she said there is a statement of discretion of the school head, which authorises them to build a culture that they are comfortable with at their schools.
“Teachers are considered role models of the students, so the learners will use the dress code to taunt them with their peers and go to an extent of drawing the teachers semi-naked in the school bathrooms,” she said.
Kebobone in regards to the printed union t-shirts she said that the school heads should inform the teachers that they are not comfortable with their attire on the school environment. This also applies to students and school heads have the power to stop them from covering books using semi-naked pictures. When she highlighted some of the challenges they picked as schools turnaround team, she indicated that some promoted managers fail to join the right group as they usually accept the promotion and get remuneration of the post but work as an ordinary teacher.
She added that such managers would discuss the content of confidential meetings with senior officials from the Ministry Of Basic Education (MoBE) with their subordinates and misdirect the roadmap of an organisation.
Kebobone said the manager with such mentality would fail to control and guide the staff according to the vision of the organisation, but operate in the mindset of a teacher mostly blaming MoBE and making lack of resources an excuse for their low performance. She also stated that some school heads are stuck in survival mode and are afraid to challenge teachers thinking that the only chance they have is to have teachers on their side.