The Botswana Teachers Union (BTU) has welcomed the new salary scale arrangement, which will see teachers being scaled like other public servants.
“This places principals at Colleges of Education, School Heads at Secondary and school heads at primary schools at E2, D1 and D2 respectively,” said the statement.
This new pay structure will be in effect on the 1st of July 2013 according to the Ministry.
The BTU revealed that they were the ones negotiating on behalf of the teachers all over the country, members and non-members.
BTU was responding to a statement released on Thursday by the Ministry of Education and Skills Development which said that ‘Government Approves Levels of Operation for the Teaching Service.’
“We are more than pleased with this new pay structure as the old pay structure enacted under Teacher Service Act was disadvantaging teachers when compared to other service workers,” said BTU Secretary General Ibo Nana Kenosi who was at the helm of the negotiations for salary negotiations on behalf of teachers.
He said BTU has managed to change what could not change since 1994 and that under his helm, the BTU took less than 3 years to change the salary scale system.
He said they pleaded and have shown the government the need for change. He said there was a need for teachers to be treated like other public servants in terms of salary scaling.
Kenosi said they had forged a good partnership with the Minister and lobbied the Minister to understand instead of hurling insults.
According to this statement, the government has taken a decision to review salary grades for teachers and this revision brings them in line with general practice elsewhere in the public service.
This, according to the statement, means teachers, especially in the C salary band, will be able to progress within the grade provided they have the qualification and that their performances warrant such movement.
In the past, government workers in the C scale could progress from C3 to C1 unlike teachers whose salaries went from C4 to C3 and then their salary remained the same. This is going to change with this newly revised salary scale for teachers. The scale revision could also see some teachers moving from C3 to C1 and this means they can earn more than P7500.
A college principal can now get a salary of more than P30000 while a secondary school head can also get more than P25000. Primary school heads also can now get more than P20000.
