17 Nov 2013

There were no agreements made on specific dates on which examiners would be paid their subsistence allowances, says the public relations officer at Botswana Examinations Council (BEC), Mr Charles Keikotlhae.

In response to a questionnaire, Mr Keikotlhae said in the past, examiners were paid subsistence allowances during the period of marking and they had, however, come to expect payments during the course of marking.

He said the BEC had planned to do the same during the current examinations cycle, but were hampered by the challenges experienced. This, he said, was communicated to the examiners through their team leaders and principal examiners throughout the marking session which ended on November 10, 2013

Mr Keikotlhae highlighted that processing payment of subsistence allowances to examiners was delayed because claim forms were not filled properly and some had to be returned for further checking.

The first batch of the 1 098 examiners, he said, was paid on November 9 and the remaining ones had their subsistence allowances paid to their bank accounts by November 11. The process of paying examiners had already started and they should be paid soon.

He also noted that running of examinations was a process that had several stages, such as registration, writing of examinations, marking, processing and release of examinations.

Mr Keikotlhae said the BEC reviewed the conduct of examinations at the end of every cycle and where gaps or challenges in the process were identified and corrective measures were immediately put in place.

In an interview, one teacher said some teachers had not yet been paid and they had decided to wait for their payments to be processed before they could travel back to their duty stations.

He said in the past, teachers were bought food during the whole marking session and they later made an agreement that they should instead be paid meal allowance Teachers, he said, want to be paid subsistence, meal and transport allowances, adding that junior secondary school teachers are paid allowances before they could embark on the marking session.  ENDS