Report Blames Venson-Moitoi For 2010 Exams Crisis

BABOKI KAYAWE and
GOTHATAONE MOENG
Staff Writers | Monday July 23, 2012 00:00

 

Although the report faults other stakeholders for the chaotic administration of the examinations, Venson-Moitoi shoulders the bulk of the blame.

The committee, led by Keetla Masogo, condemns the minister's decision to terminate talks between the Botswana Examinations Council (BEC) and teachers' unions over an amalgamated Memorandum of Understanding on the invigilation of examinations.

In September 2010, at the instruction of the minister, the BEC pulled out of the talks, which would have determined the invigilation remuneration. Negotiations between BEC and teachers' unions started in June 2010, after which each of the parties was instructed to come up with draft MOUs to detail each party's future role in the examination process. However, the two parties could not agree. While BEC pushed for a consultative arrangement, teachers wanted to be in a position to bargain, the report says. The two parties could not commit to an amalgamated MOU, leading to the collapse of the talks.

Venson-Moitoi told the committee that she instructed the BEC to pull out of the talks because exams were impending, and she feared a situation where exams would not be written.The report also states that negotiations with teachers' unions were abandoned because the attorney general advised Ruth Maphorisa, then MoESD permanent secretary, that 'there was no legal basis for the negotiations'.

Venson-Moitoi then instructed BEC to look for invigilators but not to exclude teachers who were willing to participate. This resulted in the BEC engaging retired, newly-graduated teachers as well as other personnel to invigilate. The report says the minister submitted to the committee that she made the decisions because of the authority the BEC Act vests in her position.

'In her submission to the committee, the minister did not equivocate in stating her powers under the BEC Act to give direction to the council in the conduct of school examinations in Botswana,' the report reads.

During the exam crisis, the minister informed Parliament and the nation that the examinations were going well, which led to President Ian Khama making the same pronouncement in his State of the Nation address. According to the report, the minister submitted that she made the statement at a time when the Standard Seven exams were over, and the Form Three exams were ongoing. 

'The minister did not want to term the situation a crisis because it was a situation she felt she could deal with,' the report reads.

Furthermore, the committee slams as 'lacking in foresight', the decision by the MoESD to advise the unions and BEC to write their respective MOUs separately.

The probe suggests that the ministry should have convened a meeting where a joint MoU would be produced for all parties to discuss and agree upon.

Masogo and his team describe the manner in which the invigilation impasse was handled as lax and inappropriate.

The report says it does not seem that the ministry applied its mind to the issue of examinations invigilation in 2010, hence the exams were written under unstable and hostile conditions surrounded by controversy over the misinterpretation of the roles of the three parties.

Following a 2009 court order, teachers demanded remuneration for invigilation and general administration of the 2010 examinations. However, the examination regulator, BEC, maintained that invigilation was not only part of teachers' jobs but also benefitted teachers as a mode of transferring knowledge gained during the exercise to the classroom.

An interim agreement on invigilation of examinations was drawn in 2009 following the ruling that pronounced invigilation a non-teaching duty, after which a tripartite MoU between MoESD, teachers' unions and BEC was to be produced. However, the document that was to inform the parties of their respective roles in the examinations period never saw the light of day.

Lack of regulations and grey areas in the BEC Act, made it subject to an array of interpretations resulting in areas of contention, which were difficult to resolve, the Committee found out.