04 Feb 2014

A review of the teaching service act will help address issues surrounding payment of overtime for teachers, says the Assistant Minister of Education Mr Patrick Masimolole.

Addressing secondary school heads during the Secondary School heads Biennial conference in Palapye on February 4, Mr Masimolole said initially, payment of overtime for teachers was not an issue until the introduction of the Public Service Act which touched on new hours of work.

He said this therefore led teachers to demand payment for overtime even though teaching and public service were different. He said the challenges posed by hours of work would be addressed after the review of the teaching service act.

“Unless the teaching service act is reviewed, we are going to continue having a problem of paying teachers overtime,” he said. Mr Masimolole was answering concerns by the chairman of the Secondary School Heads Conference, Mr Lapologang Kolagano who said school heads were having a serious problem when authorising overtime for teachers.

He said payment of overtime tended to create a dilemma for them in that it brought conflict between school heads and teachers when they did not authorise overtime for them and put them in trouble with their superiors when they authorised it.

To address this problem, he said the ministry should develop a regulatory tool for payment of overtime. Furthermore Mr Kolagano said instilling discipline was easy on teachers than learners as some students were a danger to other students and teachers.

He said often teachers were afraid to reprimand such learners, adding that the ministry should take this issue seriously and where necessary expel learners who bullied teachers and other learners.

On the issue of poor performance by schools, he said the ministry should take into account the fact that schools in urban and semi urban areas performed better than schools in rural areas.

He said parents in urban areas were closely involved in their children’s education than parents in rural areas as such the partnership between parents and teachers brought about good results.

In addition, he said the ministry should not be concerned about the output only but should also take into account the input, in terms of learners admitted in schools.

He said some schools due to their locationad mitted learners who performed poorly in their PSLE because primary schools in the area also performed poorly. He said therefore that this resultd in secondary schools performing poorly in their examinations. Mr Masimolole said he had no answers but had taken note of school heads concerns. ENDS