Windhoek
The Teachers Union of Namibia (TUN) and the Namibia National Teachers’ Union (Nantu) have expressed mixed feelings over a proposal by the Khomas directorate of education, arts and culture to extend teaching hours in schools until 16h00 – hinting that such a move could have legal implications.
The proposal came as part of the directorate’s target to improve grades 10 and 12 national results in the Khomas Region.
Last year the Khomas Region which was the top region countrywide in the past, improved its national ranking in the Namibian Senior Secondary Certificate (NSSC) for higher level from sixth position to fourth, while in the NSSC ordinary level it moved from number seven to fifth position. The director of education, arts and culture for Khomas Region, Gerard Vries, proposed on Tuesday during the Khomas regional directorate stakeholders meeting, among others the idea to negotiate and agree with the unions that learners will remain at school until 15h00, while teachers will also stay until 16h00.
Although the proposal was not welcomed by TUN, Vries said, the idea for the extension of teaching hours is to have learners at school so that they do their homework and study.
That way, Vries said, teachers will also assist them in selected subjects and do marking and preparation specifically from Mondays to Thursdays. Nantu secretary general Basilius Haingura told New Era in an interview that the proposal has not yet reached their offices, but he advised that it should be a collective approach including teachers themselves. “The working hours of teachers is a subject of negotiation at national level where Nantu and the employer engage in terms of working hours. As we are talking now, I don’t know how the region can engage Nantu at that level in terms of extension of teachers’ working hours,” he said.
He said extension of working hours can be “problematic” in terms of legality. “The moment you talk about extension of hours, the issue of overtime comes in. That is why we are saying, Nantu will not reject the idea, provided the school collectively, including teachers, come up with an improvement plan. This should be done collectively and school management should not impose it on them, that’s our position. It should be clear that extension of hours is not imposed on teachers. The moment it’s imposed on them it becomes a problem, then we step in to say, the issue should be negotiated,” Haingura reacted. Meanwhile, TUN president Mahongora Kavihuha expressed his disappointment with the directorate of Khomas for not inviting the unions to yesterday’s stakeholders meeting.
“That is a clear-cut demonstration that the region is not in a position to discuss matters with relevant stakeholders. It’s also failure from their side in not respecting unions who have the same members who have to perform those specific tasks. So we are very disturbed by this behaviour,” he remarked.
He said Vries has a “tendency of sidelining TUN in decision-making”. He accused the director of failing to deal with teachers’ grievances when TUN reports such matters. Instead, Kavihuha said, Vries goes and discusses such issues with other unions while they are the ones who initially raised such cases.
“With such behaviour, he will not rescue the Khomas Region from poor performance. The issue of extension of working hours is not new, it has been on the table. For their information, slavery is not the answer to high productivity. If they enslave teachers by extending their working hours unnecessarily, we will object and we are ready,” he said. He noted the answer leading to good performance in the region depends on the satisfaction of teachers.
“It’s not about enslaving them to work long hours. Is there compensation in that extension and how will these hours be recorded? We are dealing with the public service here, and as a union, we cannot allow teachers to be burdened in terms of their performance,” he said.
He said there are many issues that lead to teachers’ dissatisfaction in Khomas such as “poor performance of some principals and their bad attitudes which are being protected by the director, and the unconfirmed probation period taking so long.”
“Those are the things he must address first before he enslaves teachers. He is aware of these issues,” Kavihuha charged.
Haingura advised the directorate to rather make internal arrangements on how they can improve results with schools rather than imposing long working hours on teachers.