Teachers to stop working after hours

OARABILE MOSIKARE
Staff Writer | Thursday June 13, 2013 00:00

 

Secretary general of BOSETU, Tobokani Rari has said it will be catastrophic if the ministry implements its plans to abolish overtime payment. 'It will be moving 10 steps backward from the little progress that was made.Remember the overtime issue emanates from the unresolved hours of work in the teaching service,' Rari said. 'While unions had proposed a six-day week which translates to 10 hours a week and 26 days at the end of the month, government thought that this would be expensive and resorted to teachers working beyond normal hours and getting overtime,' he explained from Geneva, Switzerland where he is attending the International Labour Organisation (ILO) meeting.

Rari said that if the ministry goes ahead to stop overtime pay, then it would mean teachers will not do activities that are done after hours. Such activities are course work, remedial and enrichment activities, sporting activities and subject fairs. 'This will really be catastrophic to education in Botswana. Such a step cannot be taken unilaterally without involvement of unions.'That would be undermining the statutory enshrined principles of bargaining and consultation,' he charged. 

Rari said the problem is not the Public Service Act (PSA) but the nature of the job of a teacher as it relates to the international standards on hours of work (eight hours a day).'If the employer says that they are going to create a separate law for teachers, they should tell us how they are going to harmonise the work of a teacher with the international labour standards on hours of work without compromising them. This is the crux of the matter that needs to be dealt with,' he added.

Rari asserted that a separate Act is neither here nor there while the above issue remains unaddressed. 'BOSETU has proposed a six-day week, which the employer thought was going to be expensive and preferred that teachers should work overtime which has now come to haunt them. BOSETU cannot allow the international labour standards to be compromised for the purposes of cutting costs,' he explained. On Monday, education permanent secretary, Elizabeth Muzila said the ministry has paid P17 million in overtime between November 2012 and April this year. 'We are now working with the DPSM to return to the initial system because as long as teachers are using the New Public Service Act, the ministry will continue to incur huge costs,' she said.She said most of the extra hours that teachers work go to remedial lessons and sporting activities. Another measure meant to cut expenditure in teachers' overtime pay is engaging volunteers or mentors for remedial lessons.