31 Mar 2016

Some Members of Parliament (MPs) have expressed mixed feelings towards amendment of the Botswana Examination Council (BEC) Bill.

Mr Konstantinos Markus of Maun East said the bill did not in any way intend to punish the teachers.

He said it sought to iron out issues between the teachers and the employer.

Mr Markus, however, said the issue of invigilation and supervision of course work should be looked into and teachers be given better allowances.

Ngami MP, Mr Thato Kwerepe, concurred that for invigilation and marking of examinations, teachers should be given better allowances.

He also stated that teachers should be provided with accommodation during marking of final examinations.

However, several legislators from the opposition said supervision of course work and invigilation should be the work of Botswana Examination Council (BEC) and teachers must be paid allowances for that.

The bill, according to them, seemed like the idea was to get back at teachers or a punishment of some sort because courts had in the past provided guidance to what constituted duties of the teachers.

Gaborone Central MP, Dr Phenyo Butale said teachers were directly affected by this bill and therefore should be brought on board and have their input in the bill.

He said issues such as this one contributed  to poor examination results and would continue to plummet because teachers were not happy.

Dr Butale said he did not see the need for the minister responsible to rush the bill to Parliament because the bill might even make things worse for the Ministry of Education and Skills Development, as far as examination results were concerned.

He, however, advised that the minister should go back to engage teachers on these issues so that they could arrive at a position that would better serve the education system.

Francistown South MP, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi said the issue at hand had already been evidenced by the poor results in recent years because teachers were not happy.

He said invigilation of examinations and supervision of course work were not teachers’ responsibility, but they could do it better than any other people because they were professionals, hence should be compensated for that. ENDS