Teachers should not allow BEC to exploit them

| Friday September 10, 2010 00:00

Unfortunately, BEC announced at that meeting that they are not interested in the MOU anymore.  This came as a shock to the unions who have been preparing the MOU documents in good faith.

The unions would like to remind teachers about the High Court judgment of September 28 2009.  The High Court judge ruled that invigilation of external examinations is not the duty of teachers.  The judge pronounced that the “invigilation and supervision of external examinations does not fall within the ambit of duties of the Applicant’s members and that members of the applicant cannot be compelled to invigilate or supervise external national examinations”.

Following this judgment, the Ministry of Education and Skills Development and Botswana Examinations Council (BEC) begged BOSETU and BTU to encourage its members to invigilate since it was going to be an interim (temporary) arrangement.  In good faith the unions obliged, only to be stabbed on the back by BEC when the crisis resided.

BOSETU and BTU now advise school authorities to exercise restraint and not to threaten teachers into doing BEC work.  Any attempt to do so will be tantamount to contempt of the High Court judgment and the two unions will have no option but to apply for imprisonment of such officers.  School management teams are not agents of BEC.

This therefore, means that no teacher should sign a contract with BEC to do planning sessions (Home Economics), marking and moderation of projects in subjects like D&T, Art, Agriculture, etc.  Examination committees in schools should also dissolve with immediate effect.

Teachers are also reminded that it is serious misconduct to engage in private work like that of BEC and if one is found guilty will face summary Dismissal.  Section 27 of the New Public Service Act (NPSA), states that a public officer “who is guilty of serious misconduct shall be summarily dismissed from the public service on the basis of that serious misconduct”.  Sub-section 2 continues to elaborate that serious misconduct includes “performing work for compensation in a private capacity during or outside working hours, without authority from the employer”. Teachers are therefore, advised not to enter into any agreement with BEC nor do their work.

Section 37 of the same act (NPSA) further warns public officers that it is “misconduct for an employee to engage in any gainful occupation outside the public service without the consent of the prescribed authority”. If a teacher proceeds to work for BEC and for remuneration, s/he is exposing oneself to a charge of misconduct and one of the punishments is dismissal.  Forewarned is forearmed!

As the 2009 rates were temporary (interim) and both BEC and MOE&SD had pleaded that they had not budgeted for this, the unions accepted the rates as proposed then because these were to change the following year (2010).

For the 2010 BEC invigilation, BOSETU and BTU proposed that Invigilators be paid P150 per hour and Chief Invigilators a flat rate of P3 000, P5 000 and P10 000 for primary, junior and senior secondary schools respectively as this is the market rate.  If BEC wants to seriously engage teachers, she has to pay the above rates. Anything below this will be an insult to the teachers who have been treated as very cheap by organisations like BEC.  It is this cheap tag that has led to teachers being undermined and this has been worsened by some teachers who have in fact endorsed and confirmed that they are cheap by doing BEC work.

Teachers should ignore any correspondence from BEC or school authorities on BEC related issues since it will not be in their best interest.  Teachers have given BOSETU and BTU the mandate to improve their working and living conditions.  The unions have the right and duty to protect its members, wherever they are going to provide services.  Any teacher who is going to sign and do BEC work without the blessings of the two unions would have betrayed the teaching profession and the future, including his/her children, who will judge such a teacher harshly.

T M Maeletso BTU Publicity Secretary andM M MotshegwaBOSETU Publicity Secretary