Botswana: No Peace At Moeding College
AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA
The visibly emotional headmaster of Moeding College, Marcos Maedza, yesterday told parents amid reports of ill-treatment of students by their peers, that the school had no peace in 2008. Devastated parents, many of whom got information that their children had been forced to sleep in nearby bushes that provided overnight refuge from marauding Form Five colleagues who tortured male and female 'new

Teachers union leaders hospitalised after police assault
Nehanda Radio 20/2/2008
HARARE – Nine Zimbabwe teachers’ union leaders were on Tuesday hospitalised after they were severely assaulted and tortured by militant supporters of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF party. The ZANU PF supporters abducted Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) secretary general Raymond Majongwe and his colleagues as they distributed flyers on the streets of Harare denouncing the collapsed state of education ... They were taken to the party’s Harare provincial headquarters on the east of the capital’s central business district where they were severely assaulted, incurring serious injuries, according to their lawyer Tafadzwa Mugabe ... “All the nine are hospitalised in Avenues Clinic (a private hospital in Harare) under police guard,” Mugabe said. Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said he was unaware of the incident and unable to comment. The beating and torture of the union leaders comes as political pressure group, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CZC), warned on Tuesday that a repressive environment marked by intimidation and organised violence had effectively reduced next month’s elections to an exercise to simply validate Mugabe’s controversial rule ...

Angola: School Snack Programme Covers 70000 Children
AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA
About 70000 children will this year benefit from the school snack programme in the south Bié province, informed Friday in Kuito city the provincial governor,  José Amaro Tati. The governor was speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2008 academic year, which happened at Kalussinga commune, Andulo district, 205 kilometres to the North of the provincial capital (Kuito).

Namibia: Principal Warns on Abolishing School Fees
AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA
"The suggestion that school fees in Namibia be abolished can only become a reality if the Government increases the per capita funding of learners in all the regions in the country." This was the response to a proposal contained last week in a UNICEF report, by the Teachers Union of Namibia (TUN). "By now it is common knowledge that education is

Namibia: Abolish School Fees - UNICEF
AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA

UNICEF has proposed that the Government abolishes the School Development Fund (SDF) (school fees) to ensure that children access and remain in school. The UN agency said the elimination of fees should go hand in hand with adjustments to the operational budget of schools and the Education Development Fund (EDF) to focus on other costs relating to hostel fees and transport. The EDF was established in 2006 to ensure access to education for OVC (orphans and vulnerable children). It compensates schools for waiving payment of SDF fees ... At the moment, Namibia is only seven percent away from achieving the Millennium Development Goal 2 of achieving universal access to primary education by 2015. While this goal is nearly achieved, due to poverty, orphans and children made vulnerable because of HIV/Aids are finding it increasingly difficult to pay SDF. This information is contained in the Education Policy Paper titled "Stemming the Tide: Can Namibia pre-empt the reversal in Primary Education achievements?" which is authored by UNICEF Representative, Khin-Sandi Lwin ... Statistics indicate that the number of orphans under the care of grandmothers has increased from 44 percent in 1992 to 61 percent in 2000 ... Education Minister, Nangolo Mbumba, said given funding, the Ministry would subsidise certain schools in rural areas to ensure that no child is prevented from attending school ...

Namibia: PSUN Slams Declining Education Standards
AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA
The latest Grade 10 and 12 results "regrettably tell the same old sad story of gloom and doom", the Public Service Union of Namibia said yesterday. In a hard-hitting statement, PSUN Secretary General Victor Kazonyati said that Namibia's educational standards had shown a "steady and consistent decline" over the last 18 years - not just at school level

Namibia: Few Grade 12s Qualify for University Entry
AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA
Considered to be a historic event, the first Grade 12 Namibia Senior Certificate Ordinary Level examination results were yesterday released by the Ministry of Education.Of the 31243 candidates who sat for the examinations, 16791 (53.7 percent) were full-time candidates and 14452 (46.3 percent) were part-time entries. Only 3256 full-time candidates gained university admission. In

Botswana: Stop Teacher-Student Sex!
AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA

The pervasiveness of teacher-student sexual affairs is alarming. In the late eighties and early nineties, such cases were prevalent but the authorities moved in and instituted drastic measures to arrest the situation. However, lately, there are increasing reports of teacher-student "love" affairs. Surely, love does not form the basis of such a union ... Just last week, we reported complaints by some University of Botswana students who accused some lecturers of demanding sexual favours in exchange for good grades. We are just wondering whether what is traditionally known as a "cooperation fee" in some West African tertiary institutions, is also becoming institutionalised in Botswana. The behaviour of these teachers and lecturers are not only psychologically destructive to our children but also expose them to infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS ... Botswana Secondary School Teachers' Union (BOSETU) president, Eric Ditau, reportedly said they "can only take action if the members violate the union constitution". But a constitution can be amended to make it bite. The least that unions can do right now is to take the approach as explained by Botswana Teachers' Union president, Japhta Radibe. The union embarks on own investigations and should the concerned members be found to have erred, then the union offers them no protection. But we still believe the unions should also compile a register of convicted teachers and ban them from getting close to students ever again. We cannot agree more with UB Professor Richard Tabulawa's wish that the "nation could come up with a law to restrain elders, not just teachers, from engaging in sexual relationships with students ...