Boycott bec, teachers told

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

The call was made be the Botswana Secondary Teachers Union (BOSETU) and the Botswana Teachers Union (BTU) in a joint statement. '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,' the statement reads.

In the statement further revealed that BOSETU and BTU will be boycotting the BEC after failing to have a working Memorandum of Understanding.

They say that as the 2009 rates were temporary (interim) and both BEC and MoE 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). It further said 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, they have to pay the above rates. Anything below this will be an insult to the teachers who have been treated 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,' says the statement signed by publicity secretaries for BTU and BOSETU Mogomotsi Motshegwe and Tobokani Rari.

Concerning the position by the unions to boycott, Serara Moahi, Executive Secretary of BEC said that the unions should not interfere with the mandate of the BEC. 'The public should examine this role and see if it is right for the trade unions to extend their mandate to other organisations that offer part time jobs regularly,' she said.  She further revealed that the unions never discussed invigilation and marking wages but rather, 'what we discussed was the nature of the relationship we could have with them as we are not their employer.

We just offer part time jobs for them when we need them and as a result we could not have an employee-employer relationship.  As a result we failed to agree on that and not the wages.' Moahi explained that it is not their task to make sure that schools are ready to administer external examinations.  She said it is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education (MoE) to make sure that the organisation and administration of external examinations are implemented smoothly and teachers are available to invigilate as their part time job.

'Whatever communication teachers' unions pass to their members can affect us because it is our examinations but for the issue to be resolved the Education ministry and the Directorate of Public Service Management has to come on board as the teachers' employers,' Moahi said. She explained that what they expect from the schools as their examination centres is that they have to administer the examinations and the teachers would be paid for invigilating those. Concerning the course work she said there is a very fine line between what is being taught and the assessment of those. 'The MoE has taken a firm stand that course work is so much integrated in the curriculum and we pay for the moderation when teachers are expected to transfer marks and record on mark sheets that are readable on the computers,' she said revealing that DPSM as the teachers' employer should make sure that exams are administered as BEC would be waiting to receive what would be coming from the schools for marking.

Meanwhile the Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE) is expected to commence next month while the Home Economics practicals are expected to start today.