Teachers break ranks with unions

| Tuesday November 30, 2010 00:00

 

The marking started in earnest yesterday with the JC being marked at Rainbow English Medium School while the BGCSE is being marked at Lethabile English Medium School in Gaborone.

'We will see how it goes but we must note that this is the first day and the numbers of teachers that have come are satisfactory,' he said.

However, Botswana Secondary Teachers Union (BOSETU)'s publicity secretary, Mogomotsi Motshegwe, said that BEC offered 'peanuts for invigilation and learnt a lesson in the process. In principle and practical they know that the exam that they are marking lacks credibility'.

He stated that the teachers 'have gone against their will because they have been tempted with money that they could not refuse due to the poverty that they live under'. Teachers will be paid P200 daily for nights out, P50 transport a day and P6 - P11 per script that they mark.

'They will be generating money based on the number of scripts that they mark,' Motshegwe said.

He said that BOSETU strongly believe that the move to up the marking rate was due to the contribution made by their union during the invigilation boycott. He revealed that teachers used to be paid combi fare a day (P6), which has been raised to P50.

'We have put pressure on them and if we had not BEC would not have done anything to attract the teachers. That is what we are celebrating and they also learnt a lesson which we will discuss on paving the way forward in preparing for the 2011 examinations,' he said.

Furthermore, in a letter written by the BOSETU chief negotiator, Tobokani Rari, said that teachers are professionals who should not allow themselves to be dragged into a dirty examination at the end of the process.

'All professionals pride themselves in good and clean work and do not want to be associated with a shoddy job. 

Teachers should not stoop so low such that they allow themselves to cleanse an otherwise contaminated examination.  It defies logic why teachers who stood resolute and did not invigilate this year's external examination would want to turn around and mark it. The examination was invigilated by inexperienced invigilators.

'The use of such invigilators has no doubt resulted in discrepancies and inaccuracies which have thrown the whole examination process into chaos. It defies logic why teachers, who rightly so, decided not to assess course work because it is not within the ambit of duties of teachers would turn around to want to mark an examination which they know is incomplete and whose outcome cannot be relied upon.

'How can teachers who are going to mark vindicate themselves when an accusing finger can be pointed to them that they are party to an examination that has given an unfair leverage to some candidates over others?' Rari said.