- Want schools closed until teachers are vaccinated
- Have met with opposition MPs
- Await response of Domkrag MPs
TEFO PHEAGE
The country’s two educators’ trade unions, BOSETU and BTU, have decided to go to court to interdict the government from continuously having schools open in disregard of the safety of educators.
The unions say the teaching sector having, to-date, lost 66 educators to COVID-19 as the hardest hit of all categories of the public service, it is high time that they became firm about protecting their members.
The unions have approached caucuses of MPs of different political parties represented in Parliament in an endeavour to make them aware of the realities of COVID-19 at schools and other institutions of education in Botswana, and to lobby the MPs “to put across our concerns in Parliament”.
The two unions met with MPs of opposition parties on 12 July and are awaiting a response from MPs of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party and Parliament itself.
In a statement to their members yesterday, the unions criticized what they called “a casual attitude of government in addressing the plight of the teachers in as far as the COVID-19 scourges (are) concerned”.
Ministers have been making contradictory and non-committal utterances about how they will deal with the situation of teachers.