23 Mar 2025

In an effort to make teaching more professional, Botswana Teaching Profession Council (BOTEPCO) is in the process of developing a code of ethics and teaching standards, says the council’s registrar, Dr Raphael Dingalo.

Speaking during BOTEPCO and Botswana Educational Research Association (BERA) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signing ceremony  in Gaborone recently, Dr Dingalo said to professionalise teaching, they were in addition developing professional teaching standards and Continuous Professional Development Framework (CPD).

He said the teaching standards outlined core competencies expected from teachers such as subject knowledge, pedagogical skills and classroom management. Dr Dingalo also said teaching standards focused on the teacher’s ability to adapt the needs of diverse learners, engage in reflective practice and maintain professional ethics.

“Our expectations in developing the code of ethics, the teaching standards, the CPD frameworks which actually define our existence as BOTEPCO is that we want to set the right culture, foster an environment of trust, ethical behavior, integrity and excellence among teachers,” he said.

Dr Dingalo said all these efforts were meant to build a good reputation for the profession, thus attracting outstanding employees into the profession. He said through the MoU, they were to ensure that code of ethics, teaching standards and CPD framework set the right culture and fostered an environment of trust, ethical behavior and integrity among teachers.

He also said the MoU must aid in building a good reputation for teachers which would led to improvement of the quality of education and results. Dr Dingalo said they were also to establish an execution and review committee comprising representatives from BOTEPCO and BERA to monitor implementation.

BERA chairperson, Professor Kenneth Dipholo said the intent was to enhance research in educational planning to ensure that decision and policies formulated for education were research based. He said they wanted teachers from primary to tertiary to undertake quality researches and BERA was prepared to capacitate them,

Prof. Dipholo said BERA would promote teacher training in educational research in methodologies for policy planning. He said the MoU would improve the quality of education in Botswana through research and promote professional development of teachers. He further said the two recognised the role of research in enhancing learning and teaching. ENDS