31 Jul 2016

The Minister of Education and Skills Development, Dr Unity Dow, says there is need for improved working relationship between trade unions and her ministry.

Speaking at the fourth Botswana Teachers Union (BTU) congress in Palapye on Friday, Dr Dow said the relationship between the two was critical to education.

She said relationships were built by partners and they needed to be nurtured for them to grow, emphasising on mutual respect between the two.

She said her office was open to dialogue whenever trade unions needed to talk, adding that there was no need for trade unions to raise their complaints through the media when she was available to talk to them.

She said the challenges facing her ministry could be addressed if the two parties joined hands and worked together as a team.

Dr Dow said teachers should not accept the public tag line that her ministry was incompetent because her failure was their failure too.

She said the education sector was not the only sector that had challenges but it was rare to find other sectors and trade unions at each other’s throat because they sit down and come up with ways to resolve their problems.

“We can make a choice to acknowledge our successes or accept the rhetoric fear or failure,” she said.

She further said for teachers to empower themselves they needed to be informed so that they understand what is happening on the ground.

She said the union needed to know the laws that affect them as well as structures in place and how those can be reformed.

She said one may say that MOESD was given the lion’s share of the national budget yet it was faced with many challenges.

She said 52 percent of her ministry’s budget paid salaries; therefore the remaining 48 percent was unable to deal with issues affecting her ministry.

She reminded them of the 2008 global recession, adding: “The pain you are feeling is felt by teachers across the world.”

BTU president Mr Johannes Tshukudu said the relationship between MoESD and BTU was poor because the ministry did not have planned annual meetings with unions as partners in public education.

He said that showed how the ministry views unions, adding that the ministry must work to improve the status quo if public quality education has to be achieved.

“The ministry needs to bring us on board and respect us as a trade union,” he said.

The union, he said was optimistic that there was still a chance for all stakeholders to improve on dented labour relations or image.

He said all key players as partners in education owed the nation an explanation and apology on the crisis of the declining and perishing education system.

“This country was founded on the notion of Ntwa Kgolo ke ya molomo, not avoidance as we see with the current regime, our leaders simply refuse to reason with us and failure to listen to us will result in a serious disaster.”

He said it was the role of the two parties, the MOESD and trade unions taking the lead to organize and empower teachers to strive for quality public education at all costs. ENDS