BOYCOTT EXAMS MARKING – TEACHERS

 MBABANE – “Boycott the marking of external examinations!” This is a call by some teachers, to their colleagues who usually make extra money, by marking the external examination scripts. Annually, the Examinations Council of Eswatini (ECESWA) calls upon teachers to register for marking the external examinations.

The external examinations scripts marked by the teachers are the Grade VII final examinations, known as the Eswatini Primary Certificate (EPC), Form III -junior certificate and the Swaziland General Certificate of Secondary Education (SGCSE) for Form V pupils.

The teachers are calling for the boycott of the marking of the external examinations given that they are demanding that government pay them a 7.85 per cent cost-of-living- adjustment (CoLA).

Transpired

This battle between government and civil servants is not new as the same transpired last year this time of the year. The teachers, who are under the umbrella body of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) want to use their muscle to coerce government to give into their demand.
The employer and employee are not seeing eye-to-eye in that government is offering zero per cent despite the latter’s demand which has not been adhered to in the last three years.
Instead, government has extended a three per cent CoLA that can only be effected at the beginning of the next financial year – April 2020.

In order to pursuade government, the teachers want to use their muscle in bargaining for their demand by withholding their services.
To this, the Secretary General of SNAT, Sikelela Dlamini, said: “Submissions by our cadre are that our members should not mark the external examinations. This is because they say government will know that we have nothing to bargain with if we take the tasks.”

The unionist further said there was a pending meeting between SNAT’s national executive committee (NEC) and ECESWA to deliberate on the external examinations. According to Dlamini, the meeting was scheduled for a date that coincided with their activities that were aimed at sensitising teachers about their eight-day industrial action that was held from September 23 – October 2, 2019.

Schedule

Therefore, due to their tight schedule, Dlamini said the parties could not meet to forge a way forward in anticipation of the examinations. He said means to re-engage with ECESWA were already underway and the implementation of their members’ stance or discarding it would be established by then.

However, he emphasised that SNAT was a democratic association that heeded its members resolutions. With that, Dlamini said: “Our branches are forwarding messages from the membership which to date has been calling for the boycott.”
Meanwhile, last year, ECESWA was slapped with a total of 11 demands to address before it could be guaranteed that the educators would mark the external examination scripts.

Markers

This was after the markers expressed their challenges with ECESWA to their union’s NEC. They claimed these were issues that ECESWA had to deal with before they could ‘pick a red pen and start marking the scripts’.
In fact, the feeling among the teachers was that the council was exploiting them instead of treating them as professionals.
They said they were only allowed to claim transport fee at bus fare rate yet a majority of them were driving from their different places of abode to the marking venue in their own cars.

Again, the markers said they were not given accommodation yet they were expected to be at the marking venue as early as 5am and some of them worked until 8pm.
Furthermore, the teachers claimed that their payment, which was usually delayed, was taxed by 33 per cent. Regarding the 33 per cent tax, the markers said they wanted the council to negotiate with the Eswatini Revenue Authority (SRA) to at least tax them 10 per cent.

Their argument is that they allegedly saw it happening during the 2018 National Elections, where the tax was allegedly reduced to 20 per cent, after the two entities allegedly engaged in talks though this allegation by the teachers could not be verified.
 “We also want assurance that the pay rate will increase every year. Our payments should be released within a week after the marking of the last paper,” submitted the teachers.

Furthermore, they demanded that the council should make sure that a nurse was always available on site during the marking. They also demanded hardship allowance and that the council’s officers, including management, should work on their manner of approach when addressing them.

They complained that the officers and management spoke to them anyhow and allegedly disregard that they were adults and professionals.

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