<B>Secondary Schools ending at 15.00 hours </B>

The PRB Report has recommended that secondary schools teachers have to work up to 15.00 hrs. This issue has indeed become a cause of concern as there is no well-defined policy to stipulate what teachers will do.

The introduction of the 40 minutes extra work will create more problems which may not be in the interest of students, teachers and other stakeholders in the eduction sector. Already teachers are overburdened with a workload exceeding in many cases 28 periods and exposed to more than 250 students per day teaching, marking of exercise books and dealing with classroom management problems...

The school environment and teaching environment in which teachers operate are still the same. Teachers are left alone with no necessary pedagogical support in terms of teaching aids and tools and proper «encadrement». Indiscipline in many secondary schools is still not resolved and teachers and administrative staff have not been given any means to deal with student unrest.

The outcome of this new measure will lead to a greater percentage of absenteism among teachers as the workplace has not been rendered pleasant with the new PRB Report 2008. Can only increase in pay be conducive to effective teaching.

On the other hand, transport is already an acute problem. Closing schools at 15.00 hrs will further aggravate the problem of congestion. The problem of transport at the peak hours will worsen with most workers and students travelling after 15 hrs.

<B>N.Edu 4R</B>