14 Jan 2014

Government is worried about swelling number of unemployed graduates.

Some were engaged as temporary teachers in schools around the country, Assistant minister of Education and Skills Development, Mr Patrick Masimolole has said.

Addressing staff at Moamogwe Primary School in Ledumadumane recently, he said the situation was frustrating and demoralising for young graduates some of whom were stuck in one scale for a long time and this he said had potential to impact on the education and results at end of the year.

He said the situation together with a host of other problems faced by teachers such as accommodation shortage, lack of teaching materials, conditions of services and poor state of infrastructure in schools needed to be addressed if school results were to be improved.

The minister said it was the mandate of the mistry to ensure that learners got proper education hence the need to have a conducive environment for learning and teaching.

Mr Masimolole said teachers were doing a commendable job and as such government through council authorities needed to equally provide in terms of maintenance of school infrastructure, payment of water bills on time, provision of textbooks on time and building more classrooms to avoid situations like in Moamogwe where eight classrooms were taught in the open and learners are still to receive textbook for the new school term.

On accommodation issues, he said, the ministry was working on guidelines regarding rentals of private housing units by teachers especially where the ministry was unable to provide institutional housing.

The situation, he said, was meant to reduce numbers of accommodation complaints by teachers. He said government whenever vacancies arise in schools will absorb temporary employees.

Earlier teachers complained of poor state of school infrastructure, shortage of accommodation for both teachers and learners resulting in eight classes being taught in the open.

Teachers said Kweneng council failed to provide text books on time to the school forcing 50 students to share 10 books. They said council at one point provided old text books which were said to be surplus from other schools. ENDS