Moitoi should resign

Editor | Tuesday November 30, 2010 00:00

From the onset the exams have been mired in controversy. Teachers and the examinations authority, the Botswana Examinations Council (BEC), could not agree on suitable terms for both invigilation and marking fees.

There was a lot of finger pointing with the BEC accusing the teachers of being intransigent while the teachers accused BEC of being insensitive to their needs to the point of bullying them into over-exploitation. The impasse could not be resolved until the BEC decided to employ retired teachers and temporary invigilators. Even with this arrangement it will be fair to say that it was not smooth sailing.  A lot of media space was taken up by the serial blunders that were committed during the invigilation of the examinations.  Some examinations were not written on the scheduled dates. Some students were beaten during the examinations. Some papers had to be postponed because they had been leaked and this seemed to be a common problem.

Because of the fractious relationships between teachers and BEC, the nation got to learn about the many problems that were experienced.

Based on the many problems that were reported in the media, it would be fair to say the 2010 examinations experienced many problems. The problems were numerous although the jury is still out on whether the conduct of these examinations compromised the validity of the examination as a reliable measurement given the conditions under which the exams were taken.  During the fracas, we at Mmegi, and  other commentators, blamed the minister of education for failing to take leadership of the problem happening at her doorstep.  Instead of objectively dealing with the problem, minister Pelonomi Venson Moitoi was simply bending facts and playing politics when the lives of our children were on the line.  In fact, we had suggested then, and we do it now, that if Venson-Moitoi was a responsive leader she could simply resign her position over her failure to avert a national crisis.  Being the contriver that she is, Venson-Moitoi is going around telling people that there was no crisis. You can believe Comical Ali many times over other than to trust Venson-Moitoi. In her bid to stop people from seeing the dirty linen in her examination wardrobe, she wants the national assembly to believe the lie that the exams were not a crisis. Venson-Moitoi misled the President during the state of the nation address, she would obviously not think twice about embellishing facts in Parliament. She has done worse. We know how desperate Venson-Moitoi is likely to be, given the grave mistakes she committed in the ministry, but we grieve for the nation when we see young men like Fidelis Molao prostituting themselves to sycophancy. When he campaigned for Tonota North, Molao presented himself as the champion of youth problems.

Now Molao is endorsing a flawed examinations that could consign many of the youths to depravity so that he could have future campaign issue. If this 'youth champion' from Tonota North cannot see a clear examination crisis just three months into his job then we are in trouble. We support the Wynter Mmolotsi motion and everyone who is not blinded by partisan politics should support it.

                                                   Today's thought

'We want to stop putting contracts first, and we want to start putting the kids and their education first.' 

                                                 - Theresa Minutillo