03 Mar 2019

Parliament has been informed that teachers who paid for their tuition at the University of Botswana whilst working for the ministry had been refunded part of or full amount of sponsorship.

Minister of Basic Education, Mr Bagalatia Arone, said this in response to a question from MP for Boteti East, Mr Sethomo Lelatisitswe in Parliament recently.

“The procedure requires that the officer initially requests for permission to study and indicates if they will require to be reimbursed after successfully completing the course,” he said.

Mr Arone said the ministry would respond to the request indicating if they would reimburse the teacher or not depending on a number of factors that included relevance of the course of study to the duties of the officer and needs of the ministry.

He told Parliament that there were cases where those who had followed the procedure were reimbursed.

He also promised to look into the issue concerning a particular teacher in an effort to assist.

MP for Boteti East had asked the minister if it was true that teachers who paid for their own tuition at the University of Botswana whilst working for the ministry had been refunded part of or the full amount of sponsorship.

The minister was also to state if he was aware of any other case regarding the same at Letlhakane Senior Secondary School and what programme the teachers studies at UB and the year they completed and the dates they wrote letters requesting to be refunded and why they had since not been refunded.

The MP also asked when the director of the Central Region received the request and what the response was.

He also wanted to know whether it was true that the said teacher got permission to study from the ministry. ENDS