Teachers' tit-for-tat hurting students

CHANDAPIWA BAPUTAKI
Staff Writer | Friday June 17, 2011 00:00

 

The teachers are refusing to teach the topics that were supposed to have been covered in the past eight weeks they were out on strike.

According to Botswana Secondary Teachers Union (BOSETU) chief negotiator Tobokani Rari, in the teaching profession when a term starts teachers make a plan in what is called Scheme of Work to indicate what they will be doing the whole term. This includes topics that will be covered per week and activities like monthly tests and end-of-term examinations.

He said while they were on strike, the Ministry of Education and Skills Development and the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM) indicated that they would replace labour by engaging temporary teachers to do the work that was supposed to be done by striking teachers. According to Rari, upon their return to work on Monday, teachers found that the students were still where they had left them, as no work had been done.

He explained that according to their schemes of work, this was Week Eight and supposed to be end-of-term exams. 'Teachers have requested that they be given the tests to administer but there is nothing. So in most schools teachers have agreed to baby-sit the students in classes as they cannot set the tests that was supposed to be done by those who were not participating in the strike and the temporary teachers,' Rari said.

He, however, said they, as a union, would write a letter to their members to tell them that they can recap or revise material that they had covered before the strike. 'Fact of the matter is that we will not teach anything that was supposed to have been covered in the past eight weeks,' he said.

However, this week the ministry held an urgent meeting with the union leaders over the matter. Rari said they discussed strategies to mitigate the effects of the walkout adding that the ministry officials verbally briefed them on their proposal.  He said they were told that the ministry would be introducing a schools television channel and acquiring material from BOCODOL for Form Fives. 'That was fine because it did not affect the welfare of the teachers,' he said.

He stated further that MoE suggested that teachers work after hours and weekends and they would be paid overtime allowance.   'They are trying to go around the issue of No Work No Pay. They have first of all to define how many hours teachers are to work so that they know when their overtime work starts. MoE had failed to resolve the issue of undefined hours before we went on strike, they do not have anything to guide them or to work on,' Rari said.

He explained that while the ministry has proposed that the winter term break be cut from five weeks to two weeks, vacation borders on teachers' leave days. 'We doubt if they will let the teachers go on leave during the school term. Not all teachers would want to go on leave during the school vacation and not all would stay,' he said, adding that was an advantage that the teachers enjoyed before the New Public Service Act and according to section 67 that should be carried on.

On the way forward, he said the ministry must tell government that the principle of 'No Work No Pay' would not work for the teachers. He indicated that the teachers' unions already have a modem of how they would sacrifice their weekends, vacations and rest days to cover for the lost ground if paid for the time that they were on strike.

When reached for comment, Principal Public Relations Officer Nomsah Zuze would not be drawn into discussing the details of the meeting but confirmed that her ministry had the met with the teachers' unions to give them their proposal to make sure that at the end of the day there was 'learning and teaching' taking place in schools.

'We are meeting next Wednesday for the way forward,' Zuze said.