06 Jul 2015

The Ministry of Education and Skills Development has described as untrue allegations presented in the Botswana Gazette allegedly by BOSETU mouthpiece Solomon Batsietswe.

The ministry stated that in the said article BOSETU mouthpiece, Batsietswe allegedly accused the ministry for failing to pay teachers coursework fees for 2014 and delayed a meeting to come up with the 2015 rates even though some subjects have already completed their coursework.

“As a matter of fact, the ministry has paid all due 2014 coursework fees with the last payments for coursework done on the June 3 2015 and there were 193 teachers involved,” the press release from the ministry stated.

It noted that the ministry had just received 60 claims from schools and payment would be effected for July 2015 as agreed with the unions.

According to the statement, in the consultation meetings between the ministry and teacher unions, the ministry had always advised that if there were teachers who could have been omitted when payments were done then unions could always forward the names and verification be made and authorised claim forms submitted for payment.

It said in the last consultative meeting, the agenda was tabled and adopted by both parties, whereas the issue of 2015 coursework rates was an agenda item, however, the meeting could not dispose of all the agenda items due to time constraints and therefore, the aforementioned issue on 2015 coursework rates will form part of the next meetings’ agenda. 

The statement furthermore says the MoESD finds it unethical and unprofessional for the union to go behind their backs “to mislead teachers and the nation on the media over issues that they (unions) are free to raise with the ministry and address on daily basis.” ENDS