Education Minister and BTU's new love

Editor | Monday April 22, 2013 00:00

It is heartening to read that in a rare development both the BTU and the Minister were literally singing from the same hymn book. In fact we see pictures of an elated Minister of education, leading a chorus with the teachers dancing with the same zeal.

Somewhere in the story the congress delegates are quoted praising the Minister's work, and vowing that they will vote for her in the coming elections. They also state that they would love her to continue as minister of Education.While the Education Ministry is no doubt saddled with all manner of challenges, there is no denying that under Mma-Venson, there have been signs of progress. Teachers are getting houses, syllabus is revamped to address the culture of poor education and declining results, and lately, the Minister successfully pushed for a new level of remuneration for the teachers. Indeed all these changes do go a long way in putting smiles on the teachers and their unions as shown in Francistown. We want to take this gesture of appreciation by the teachers as a demonstration of trust. However we would also love to advise the Minister of Education to take this show of support seriously and do more to address other outstanding challenges faced by both the teachers and the country at large in as far as human resources development and skills development is concerned.

The truth is a lot has been done but a lot still remains to be done, and this must be seen as a motivation rather than over-looking the Minister's efforts.

We urge the Minister to continue to be sensitive to the plight and requests of the nation and not play the boss and lose focus. Like the BTU congress, other teachers' unions should also learn to appreciate the progress being made while at the same time continuing to advocate more for their rights and privileges, without forgetting to come up with innovative ways of improving delivery in their respective sectors, lest they be accused of promoting a culture of entitlement at the expense of productivity in the work place.