The Botswana Sectors of Educators Trade Union (BOSETU)today said whilst it acknowledges socio-economic challenges created by COVID-19 it does not think is the right time to increase VAT by 2% and implement levies on sweetened beverages, fuel levy, plastic levy and used cars.
“It is our belief that these levies and tax changes could have been delayed to a post COVID 19 period. It is worth noting that taxes and levies if too high also have the deleterious effects of dampening the growth of the economy. BOSETU is worried that Government seems to have given up in trying to diversify the economy to generate the growth and revenue and instead it has turned to its ordinary citizens to directly increase its purse,” said Samuel Aboneng, BOSETU Treasurer.
He said, “With the current high – income inequalities, such regressive tax and levy measures will do more harm to the poorer households and increase the already worse income inequality of the country. We urge government to postpone the fiscal changes in this current period of crises. Households and workers need support from government rather than being required to lose more of their very limited resources to government during a crises.”
BOSETU expressed alarm at the decline of the Government Investment Account portion of the Official Reserves that went towards financing the budget deficit of P14.3 billion. The reserves declined from P17.8 billion at the end of 2019 to P5.6 billion in November 2020.
“We also note the intention to deal with the inefficiencies of the State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) some of which have duplicating and overlapping mandates,” said Samuel Aboneng, BOSETU Treasurer.
He said, “We are however highly worried about the implications of possible closure and liquidation of some SOEs, especially possible impact on the loss of jobs and the possible increase in the dependency ratio as a result at a time of an already jobless growth economy with very high unemployment rate of about 25 percent as reported in this current budget speech.”
The education sector in Botswana is under the auspices of three Ministries and these include; Ministry of Basic Education (MOBE), Ministry of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology (MOTE) and Ministry of Employment, Labour Productivity and Skills Development (MELSD). It is important to point out that in line with current ministry portfolio responsibilities, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, though not part of the education sector as such, has a role to play in the delivery of basic education.
“They do so through the provision of the necessary primary schools infrastructure (buildings, furniture), feeding, teaching and learning materials, transport and equipment. This is the reason why this review would keep on referring to the said ministry,” said Samuel Aboneng, BOSETU Treasurer.
It can be seen from the recurrent budget trend analysis described above that the only Ministry in the education sector that will have an increase in the recurrent budget is MOBE.
The proposed budgetary provisions for MOTE and MELSD meanwhile reflect a reduction in comparison to the 2020-21 allocation. The reasons that informed this move will probably be enunciated upon at the Committee of Supply stage.
The rationale for the proposed increase in the MOBE recurrent budget has been articulated as follows:
…. the Ministry of Basic Education has been allocated the largest share of 18.8 percent of the proposed ministerial recurrent budget amounting to P9.52 billion. The amount represents a growth of P510.84 million or 5.7 percent over the current year’s approved budget. The growth mainly comprise the budgetary provision for creation of a total of 1,751 positions of teachers to align with COVID-19 protocols in terms of reducing class size and social distancing in schools across the country. The proposed budget is mainly driven by personal emoluments for teachers and service charges, especially water and electricity in schools. Other costs associated with schools include provision of food, textbooks, material for practical subjects as well as stationery. (Paragraph 86)
“The Ministry of Basic Education had reported during the Committee of Supply meeting in 2020 that is had employed 1823 temporary teachers for expanded schools and to relieve teachers who are away on study or maternity leave as well as those on light duty due to ill health,” said Winston Radikolo, President of BOSETU.
He said, “As a result, the Ministry is likely to continue to engage temporary teachers, something that is not acceptable. There should have been a deliberate effort to make budgetary provisions to cater for staffing needs of expanded schools.”
Botswana Sectors of Educators Trade Union is worried that the education sector would be impacted negatively by the envisaged cost cutting measures, specifically right sizing of the public service. It has been proposed that in order to deal with the high wage bill:
…. Government needs to right-size the public service. Meanwhile, as an effort to reduce the wage bill, Government will abolish 50 percent of vacant positions, in value, as of 1st April, 2021. In this regard, the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM) will be expected to review the size of the public service and, during the 2020/21 Financial Year, recommend measures to right size it as part of over-arching public sector reforms. (Paragraph 126)
It is reasonable to state that MOBE should have long embarked upon capacity building for teachers in order to prepare them for the envisaged transformation to digitalization.
“There is clearly a lack of Government commitment to sector level approach to the education transformation process, in this respect school digitization. This is reflected by the fact that there is no reference to the transformation of teacher education, a function undertaken by the Ministry of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology. Teacher training institutions need to embrace this in the reforms of teacher education and training. The digitization initiative should have been reflected in the budget as a system level transformation initiative covering basic education, tertiary education and technical and vocational education.
The primary school backlog eradication programme will assist in dealing with the current congestion problem. Unfortunately, the planned intervention is based on the pre-COVID-19 scenario. The need for more space has since arisen, hence necessitating the revision of the existing plans.
The proposed budget has, therefore, been tailored to deal with legacy issues and it does not address the need to decongest schools as dictated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this regard, it can be said, without any doubt, that the proposed budget allocation is not sufficient to address primary schools infrastructure requirements which are critical for the delivery of quality education
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the education sector not only through the disruption of the teaching and learning process, but also the overall learning environment:
• Atmosphere of fear and anxiety: This necessitates the development of strong psychosocial support for teachers and students;
• Loss of learning: Not much learning might be taking place. Learning loss or loss of learning will have long term effect on learner performance and their ability to function fully in the knowledge society. In the short-term, some learners might end up progressing to the next grades while they have not been adequately prepared to do so. This is something that has to be taken into account and strategies put in place to deal with this challenge;
• Loss work work-based learning opportunities: For technical and vocational learning, disruptions in work places have made it difficult to implement apprenticeship schemes and work-based learning modes, key elements of a functional and market-responsive technical and vocational system.
“There is not much that is new that the proposed budget is offering for the education sector. We can only wait with great anticipation to appreciate how the three ministries, MOBE, MOTE and MELSD are going to strategically utilize the resources that have been allocated to them,” said Tobakani Rari, Secretary General of BOSETU.
