ETSSP: A new hope for Botswana’s education system

Botswana’s Education and Training Sector Strategic Plan (ETSSP) ushered a new hope for our education system. It also laid bare the challenges bedevilling the education sector in the country and more importantly created some sense of urgency to close gaps identified. ETSSP was designed to restore a sense of accountability in schools among other things.

A properly run school should never doubt its ability and power to get the teaching and learning train back on the rails. Low accountability in schools means gone are the days when a school could proudly declare that ‘the buck stops here’. The initiative to get things right in the classroom has been lost to external forces. With accountability gone out of the window, all hopes are pinned on education oversight institutions to initiate reforms. The role of the regional support office must be put in its proper perspective. The office carries a supporting function, existing to play its catalytic role and it was never designed to steal the thunder from a school system. A school usually rots from within. The head of a school should accept the flack when things go wrong. When things go wrong, those privileged to preside over the affairs of a school should assume full responsibility and engineer reforms and remedial measures aimed at the restoration of a high performing culture. The worrisome trend is that far too many schools are struggling to put their heads above water. This means an overwhelming number of schools qualify for placement under external ‘life support’ system. The regional office, with its limited capacity and resources, cannot cope with such an overwhelming number of schools needing close monitoring and support.

The only viable solution lies in encouraging and challenging each school to get its house in order. The role of school principals in the school reforms agenda cannot be overemphasised. As Rachel E.

Curtis and Elizabeth A. City put it, a school that has lost its bearing should continually do some soul searching. In their words, “it is important to answer the question what was the purpose of the team? Asking team members this question individually can be enlightening. If there are eight members and more than five purposes articulated, there is a problem of purpose.” A school that is devoid of a common sense of purpose is a school adrift and can only rise again after a repurposing exercise.

The duty of repurposing a school falls squarely in the hands of school principals. This system and not least parents should not relent in their call for increased accountability in schools. The quality of those deployed to manage schools should increasingly become under close scrutiny. Those who campaign vigorously to divert attention from the school system often describe teaching and learning as a tripartite undertaking not limited to teacher-student engagement but also requiring a great deal of parental/community. This is true. There is no denying the fact that collaboration is the best thing that can happen to a school. Parents should take a keen interest in the education of their children and should lend support they can muster to improve the overall health of their children’s schools. Equally, however, effective teaching the teachers may dispense, teachers can only do so much but the rest should be done by students. Students apply themselves better when the home environment is sufficiently challenging and motivating them. However, much as a tripartite relationship is ideal in helping a school to fulfill its purpose, schools should not expect too much from parents. Placing too much hope and faith in external actors breeds disappointment.

Parental support, experience has shown, is not always guaranteed. It is advisable for schools to nurture and sustain a self-supporting culture. It is risky for a school to find every excuse to transfer and outsource accountability to external partners. City and Curtis exposed the risks of over dependence on external support when they observed that, “if teachers are sitting passively, being lectured by administrators, then the teachers will probably lecture their students, leaving students disengaged. The buck indeed stops with the school principal and his charges. The role of parents should be placed in a proper perspective – they are catalysts in the teaching and learning process and therefore can never be a good substitute for good teaching. If all variables are put on a scale, the school environment carries more weight than any other factor. If consistently subjected to good teaching, students stand a chance of achieving improved learning outcomes. Parents, rich or poor, desire a good education system for their precious little ones. And they expect school principals to shoulder the onerous task of leading their schools with distinction. Parents still have much faith in the teacher no mistake old concept and they do not expect the teachers of their children to fall short of achieving expected standards of proficiency. As they go about their daily hustles, the last things parents want to worry about are issues of safety of their children and quality of education. Parents understandably so have high expectations for schools managing the education of their precious children. Parents need assurance that their precious children are in safe hands and not least subjected to an effective teaching jab. To meet parental expectations, the system should guard against complacency. Complacency creeps in and can manifest itself clearly when the system does not vigorously subject its school principals to close scrutiny. Schools should never be expected to perform in spite of school principals but should tick and perform because of their good administrative acumen and instructional leadership.

The overall health of any school hinges on the quality of each and every principal. In addition to a robust vetting of people who aspire to lead schools, a continuing professional development programme should be instituted. It was with a sigh of relief in the winter of 2018 when a decision was taken by ministry officials to step up training for school leaders. In the quest for a positive change, the school principals were to assume frontline positions and not relegated into the background. Carefully selected school principals based on experience and meritorious service were to undergo training on governance and instructional leadership at universities of international repute. This was a departure from the norm where externally based education officers were more often than not principal targets for any capacity building programme. The education officers were then expected to subsequently cascade their knowledge and skills to schools. This development witnessed the training of eight school principals plus two education officers at the prestigious Harvard Graduate of Education School. The training culminated in the formation of the inspiring school turnaround team, which traversed the length and breadth of the country preaching the gospel that leadership makes the impossible possible.