BTC must jack up service

Editor | Tuesday January 15, 2008 00:00

This, without doubt holds the competitive edge over the popular cell phones.
Users of fixed line telephones would have noticed a disturbing trend that every time it rains, BTC lines usually go dead. We do not know whether this is the technology or some hardware used in these telephones. But this is what usually happens every time it rains some BTC lines - mostly residential lines - pack up.

Usually when you ring a number it will give you a ring tone while on the other end the gadget will not be responding. So the person you are calling will not hear the phone ringing.

The sad thing is that the service provider, Botswana Telecommunications Corporations engineers and technicians do not pick this up until it is reported to them. Given the regularity with which this inconvenience happens to some customers, it becomes a burden that every time they are called upon to report a fault to one national fault line that is often busy and the poor customer is forced to wait for eons.

It is baffling that in this technological era, BTC has not come up with a system that monitors faults to correct them without burdening customers with monotonous fault reports that happen every time there is a slight drizzle. We concede that the BTC turnaround time in attending to faults has improved but there is still room for improvement.

Teachers challenged
The Ministry of Education has announced that the Form Four admissions for 2008 are out. Our first impression is that this is good for the admissions to be announced this early. It is still the first week of the term and chances are that the students will not miss much of the term. The other good thing is that the enrollment has gone up by about four percent. We have always wanted increased access and this is a step in the right direction.

Increased access usually comes with added responsibilities. We recognise that the results are not very good to the extent that even those students who got poor percentages have been admitted. This is a challenge to teachers and schools to proactively come up with measures to turn around the not so impressive passes in the next exams.

Today's Thought
Health is not valued till sickness comes.

Thomas Fuller