Chandapiwa Baputaki
2 July 2009
The department of teacher training and development will not send 72 teachers for training in external institutions even though they were nominated for further training to upgrade their qualifications.
According to the assistant public relations officer in the Ministry of Education, Godfrey Kalanke, the move was done due to the economic recession.
He explained that the move will affect teachers who were due for subjects that have fallen down in the ministry's scale of urgency.
Kalanke stated that the subjects are for primary education and include Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Computers and Bachelor of Agriculture. The department had nominated 170 teachers for 2009/10 Bachelor of Education programme, 400 teachers for primary education and about 10 for Masters Degrees. "These numbers might be reduced due to criteria used by institutions," Kalanke said.
However, some teachers have revealed that there were turned down by the University of Botswana for not meeting the cut off point despite having other qualifications.
"What we do not understand is how cut off points could be used for teachers who have other qualifications such as a diploma and have been working for more than 10 years?" quizzed one teacher, who preferred anonymity. He stated that there are some teachers who went and queried the negative response they got from the UB and got admitted in the process.
"This will force many teachers who were not admitted to flock to the university to query the responses they got and it is going to be a frustrating ordeal," he said.
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Policies don't always reflect the needs of a country or community. I can honestly say every time when legislators come up with a policy, and with high hope that it will make a difference, someone will also try to find a loophole to dim that hope.
In the case of the idealistic educators, my heart goes out to them. While the policy may not honor your qualifications, I want to shout out on behalf of your students that they do.
Keep up with the good work. And stay idealistic.