BOSETU blasts ministry over in-service training
Baboki Kayawe | Tuesday September 20, 2016 17:32
The union’s secretary general, Tobokani Rari said in an interview that their position is that the education system of any country is as good as its teachers and as such teachers should be up-skilled, re-tooled and upgraded for the country to have an effective teaching service. He stated that this move will definitely improve the quality of education.
Reacting to assistant minister of MoESD, Fidelis Molao’s recent calls for teachers to finance own further studies as government is having financial challenges, Rari said it will be a calamity of the worst order. He said this shows lack of foresight, if the education authorities could say there will be no in-service training owing to a zero budget for such.
“We are only five months into the current budget cycle and if the words of the assistant minister are anything to go by, already the in-service training budget has been exhausted. This goes a long way to demonstrate lack of commitment on the part of the ministry to in-service teachers,” he said.
He added the decision by the ministry is intolerable and devoid of wisdom as this will ultimately affect quality education. It is truism that it is only a very small portion of teachers who will be able to finance their studies in view of the meager and slavery salaries that they get paid by government, Rari further said.
BOSETU believes one of the major shortfalls of the education system, which has resulted the continuous decline of the quality of education depicted by the continuous drop of the final year results, is the death of in-service education.
“In-service education both in the form of in-service short workshops and seminars meant to up-skill and re-tool teachers, and also the long term further training to upgrade teachers’ qualifications is crucial to teaching and learning.
The government has rather chosen to intensify the inspection department which is used for fault finding and witch hunting,” he said.
Rari said issues of in-service are part of employees’ conditions of service and as such for any alterations on such a condition, there is need for consultation with workers represented by their trade unions.
“We regard such unilateral announcement as disrespect and lack of due regard for the teacher trade unions and their members,” he said.