Teachers free to go For Xmas break - Ministry

CHANDAPIWA BAPUTAKI
Staff Writer | Monday December 13, 2010 00:00

The announcement was made through a press statement by the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education and Skills Development, Grace Muzila last Thursday after the teachers were required two weeks ago to work during the school holidays or fill in leave forms if they wanted to take a break.

'Botswana Teachers' Union has received with delight news that school heads have been ordered to release teachers for school vacations after an abrupt order that kept teacher at their duty stations,' BTU chief negotiator Kwantle Kwantle said.

He explained that it was unclear as to what prompted the ministry to take the action. 'The order was bound to be abandoned simply because the action was motivated by procedural faults. First it was against good governance to by-pass the natural way of engaging teachers unions before issuance of the order,' Kwantle said, adding that the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM) and the labour movement had reached an agreement on certain issues like transitional negotiations.

'It could have been ideal if the ministry officials had waited until the process of registering a bargaining council was completed and then bring to the negotiating table the issue of teachers' leave. This was going to be amicably dealt with,' he said.

On their part, MoE's principal public relations officer, Nomsah Zuze has said that the issue was meant for records' purposes only.

Currently there are no records of accumulated leave by the teachers because when they go on vacation, which is treated like leave, they do not fill in any documents for records' purposes, she said.