By Neo KolaneTop of Form
Teachers’ unions are waiting with bated breath for the ministry of education and training to finally effect the appointment of over 800 acting school principals.
The unions met with the ministry on Thursday last week, and were informed that M62 million has been secured and the long-waited process of hiring the acting principals will start soon and is expected to be completed by September this year.
The unions had previously fired a broadside at education and training minister Ntoi Rapapa, whom they accused of perennially making promises that never came to fruition.
The unions are the Lesotho Association of Teachers (LAT), Lesotho Teachers Trade Union (LTTU) and Lesotho Schools Principals Association (LesPA).
The teachers’ dissatisfaction emanates from the ministry of education’s failure to hire 851 acting principals substantively in the past 10 years.
They are part of 1267 principals who were engaged in 2014, 417 of whom were hired on a permanent and pensionable basis.
In a meeting with parliament’s portfolio committee on social cluster last year, Rapapa told the unions that M62 million had been set aside for the 851 acting principals to be hired on a substantive basis.
Speaking to theReporter after last week’s meeting, LesPA president Mathafeng Moteuli was unmoved by this latest promise, stating that the principals will only believe it when it comes to pass.
“We will not be convinced until it has taken place, because it is their (ministry’s) perennial promise. So, yes, we are taking the promise with a pinch of salt because we have lost all confidence in what they say,” Moteuli said on Monday.
He recalled that teachers planned a protest march for November 2023, but called it off after Rapapa made a commitment to hire all acting principals by April this year.
“As principals, we have formed a task team that deals with the issue of performance contracts.
“We feel other members of LesPA are overworked and put under undue pressure,” he added.
Weighing in on the matter, the secretary general of LAT, Letsatsi Ntsibolane, decried the long-standing issue of principals serving in an acting capacity for extended periods.
He referred to the Education Act No. 3 of 2010, which states that principals should be hired under performance contracts for a period not exceeding five years.
However, Ntsibolane said from 2010 to 2011, the government reviewed this policy, citing high costs and logistical challenges in conducting performance appraisals. This led to the appointment of acting principals in some schools.
“In 2018, our first teachers’ strike included demands for principals’ positions to be made permanent. Then, in the run to the 2022 national elections, the then minister of education announced the appointment of 417 principal positions but this could not be effected due to lack of a budget allocation,” he indicated.
