27 Jan 2025

The Ministry of Child Welfare and Basic Education needs to absorb 4 000 contracted teachers including teacher aids, deputy permanent secretary, Professor Agreement Jotia says. 

Addressing the media in Gaborone recently, Professor Jotia said government coffers were currently dry to facilitate  payment of the said teachers if absorbed.

 “Assuming we had the latitude to say they start work pending availability of funds, they would have already been engaged. But, we are also trying to address their distress as per their petition of performing work without payment,” he said. 

Professor Jotia said even if on contract, it was ideal to engage teachers on long-term basis for effective learning and continuity rather than the three months prevailing currently. 

He said the ministry was working on issues of staff establishment versus the workload to map the way forward. 

On the issue of Outcome Based Education (OBE), he said the idea was noble, but not attainable as assessment tools were not equal to what students had been taught while on the other hand, teachers and schools were not resourced to use available tools.

“Noble as the idea was, the unfortunate state of affairs is that, this is a curriculum revamp that was never resourced. No adequate funds were channelled towards OBE. 

So if you are a conscious ministry and you find yourself in such a predicaments, you have to make difficult decisions,” he said. ENDS