BOSETU celebrates 30th anniversary
Correspondent | Tuesday August 15, 2017 16:28
The dinner would be held at Majestic Five Hotel on the night of August 25, 2017 commencing at 7:30pm. The 30th Anniversary celebratory dinner will be held under the theme; Celebrating 30 Years of Emancipating Botswana Educators.
During the dinner, there will be an unveiling and presentation of the 30th anniversary booklet, titled, “BOSETU Road, from inception to date, that chronicles the road traversed by BOSETU, detailing the challenges experienced, the successes and projecting into the future.
There will be a presentation of how the union services grown from inception to date. Over and above these, the occasion will avail an opportunity for the re - launching of the BOSETU online interactive platforms that were created to improve communication between the Headquarters and the membership being the revamped BOSETU Website, BOSETU online Television, which is currently being run on YouTube, the BOSETU Twitter account and the rejuvenated BOSETU Facebook page.
There will as well be the launching of both the BOSETU bursary and scholarship initiatives. Prior to the cutting of the cake and toasting to the 30th birthday of BOSETU, there will be the awarding of tokens of appreciation to the former leaders of BOSETU specifically the former presidents and secretary generals who saw the movement growing to where it is.
BOSETU, a teacher trade union that was founded in 1987 as a staff association for secondary school teachers, known then as Botswana Federation of Secondary School Teachers or by its acronym of BOFESETE, grew by leaps and bounds over a span of 30years. As part of its growth, it metamorphosed several times to become a trade union for secondary school teachers, known as Botswana Secondary School Teachers Union, words forming the BOSETU acronym.
This change was necessitated by the change of laws by the Botswana government to accommodate unionisation in the public service in consonance with the domestication of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions on unionisation that have been ratified by Botswana. BOSETU, the Botswana Secondary School Teachers was to later transform into Botswana Sectors of Educators Trade Union, still abbreviated as BOSETU, this time, the change being necessitated by the need to accommodate the process of organising in other sub-sectors such as the pre-primary, primary and tertiary.
This followed the 2009 special congress resolution that BOSETU should extend its scope of organistion to all other sub-sectors of the education sector.