Student teachers receive allowances, finally
Baboki Kayawe | Tuesday April 26, 2016 15:12
The teaching practice involves the attachment of the student teachers to public schools around the country, as part of their curriculum. The students’ colleagues at Tonota College of Education as well as their self-sponsored peers started their teaching practice on April 15, 2016.
Yesterday, Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD) spokesperson, Silas Sehularo confirmed that the student teachers had reported for teaching practice. He, however, denied that the delay in the processing of their allowances was caused by late submission of students’ names to the Department of Tertiary Education Financing (DTEF).
“There were corrections that had to be made on the list for effective payment, which had to be confirmed with the college. This caused the delay in the payment process,” he said.
Affected student teachers had said the delay in disbursement of allowances had robbed them of the ‘observation week’ a period before the teaching practice, during which they observe and acquaint themselves with the teaching atmosphere.
The spokesperson said the teaching practice exercise has been allocated nine weeks, although according to the College Prospectus and the Teaching Practice Guidelines, it is allocated a minimum of seven weeks.
“The 2016 teaching practice exercise therefore has exceeded the stipulated minimum and will fall under the planned time without the need for extension.
“Moreover, second-year students will not be externally examined therefore their supervision will go on until the end of the school term, June 30, 2016,” said Sehularo.
He added that the observational period had not been cancelled because some students, both self-sponsoring and government-sponsored, were already in the field last week.
“The purpose of the observation week is to enable student teachers to prepare for the commencement of their assessment. Students who would have missed the observation will have time to settle while assessment focuses on those who reported earlier,” he said.
To make up for the lost time, the college has planned to put up an intervention of mobilising and intensifying their structures to assist the student teachers to accomplish their teaching practice in the given available time. In addition, the institution has committed to make plans to cover all students extensively.
MCE has said it will be logistically difficult to place the 300-plus student teachers according to their choice of schools. Though some students have been deployed at schools of their choices, availability of subject combination in schools, school capacity, sharing of schools equitably with other institutions, for instance the University of Botswana and discontinuation of some subjects in some schools, such as Computer Education and Music, have affected placement of these teacher students.