|
The Lesotho Association of
Teachers (LAT) has commended government for introducing free primary
education to enable children from poor families to have access to schooling.
Delivering the keynote
address at the 17th Congress of LAT held at the Examinations Council of
Lesotho (ECOL) Hall in Maseru on December 29, LAT president Mr. Pitso
Mosothoane described the move as a step in the right direction. LAT as an
organisation is committed to advocating for quality education for
Basotho children.
The theme for this year's
Congress is 'Global Campaign for education for all with special reference to
teacher organisations', which poses an immense challenge not only to
teachers' organisations but also to mankind in general. This global call
becomes unavoidable since there is a large number of the world's population
that is still illiterate.
"Statistics indicate that
by the end of 1999, about 125 million children world-wide had never even
seen the inside of a classroom while about 150 million children were
receiving very low quality education at such high cost that they had to drop
out of school," he said.
On HIV/AIDS, the LAT
president said people are dying of AIDS on a daily basis. Humanity is
threatened and unless this threat is redressed people tirelessly redress
this threat, very soon mankind will become history. Mr. Mosothoane therefore
called for teachers to join hands in the fight against this scourge. Mr.
Mosothoane condemned the increasing acts of violence against women and
children, saying that of late men have no shame to carry guns, butcher
knives and axes in order to lay-way some innocent women or children who are
mercilessly hacked down with these lethal weapons. He added that at times
these murderers break into the sleeping rooms of grannies over 80 years to
rape them and then killing them.
The President of LAT appealed to the government to impose very severe
punishment on the culprits in order to end these outrageous habits. On
behalf of teachers, Mr. Mosothoane denounced these acts and committed
teachers to sensitise their pupils about these social ills.
Presenting the Secretarial report, the LAT Executive Secretary Mr. Paul
Sematlane mentioned that the common problems that teachers encounter in
their work places include illegal dismissals as well as unnecessary delays
of teachers' pensions.
Mr. Sematlane said the teachers' salaries continue to diminish as inflation
and national taxes continue to gnaw at them mercilessly.
He said as an achievement, LAT in co-operation with Education International
(EI) have developed a three-year comprehensive project whose major objective
is to fight HIV/AIDS.
He encouraged teachers to commemorate World Teachers Day that is marked
annually on October 5.
The conference was attended by 205 primary and high school teachers drawn
from 10 districts in the country. The objective of the annual congress
is
to review the past activities and make new plans for the coming year. The
congress ends on Tuesday.
18
December
2003 |