The last time I met Mr Maoto was last year (2008) before the commencement of the external national examinations when I addressed School Heads of the South region in Lobatse about BOSETU's position of not going to invigilate and mark the examinations.
During and after the address, Mr Maoto revealed his history with BOFESETE. He impressed me with his reminiscing, forthrightness and confidence as a secondary school teacher at Kgari Sechele in Molepolole. He said he was saddened by the state of affairs of the teachers and the poor representation that teachers had during that time. He had attended a teacher conference but his comments about the bad state of teachers' conditions were not taken down well by the education authorities and other parties present and he was immediately kicked out of that conference. He then saw the gap and the need to establish a secondary school teacher organisation that would engage education authorities on the improvement of teacher working and living conditions. He said during that time he was with a close colleague, Mr Pandor. Armed with this brilliant idea, he then approached other progressive colleagues like the late Serake Mfolwe, Gaogakwe Phorano, Titus Mbuya, Slumber Walebowa, Lesedi Seitei, Ms Tirelo Linda Lesetedi and so on. He chaired the first meeting and the final product was a bubbly BOFESETE, which then engaged the education authorities. These activists were teachers who were mainly from Kgari Sechele and Molefi senior. The bad conditions in teaching culminated in the 1986/7 marking boycott. Maoto's brainchild, BOFESETE was then duly registered in 1987. Feeling the heat of BOFESETE, the authorities employed dirty tactics to frustrate the organisation by transferring the leadership to remote areas and even used negative adjectives and adverbs to portray the organisation in bad light by calling it militant, sectarian, divisive and an opposition party agent! Few teachers were of course scared and intimidated by the tactics and did not want to be associated with BOFESETE for fear of jeopardising their progression path! But with a strong character and visionary leadership which was later augmented by the likes of Odirile Gabasiane, Sechele Sechele, Baboloki Tlale, Richard Boitshwarelo to mention a few, Maoto's dream continued to grow.
