Fixing Botswana’s education system

Botswana is in a downwards spiral and if we do not take the right measures it will take decades before we are even able to get back to where we are right now.

Education in this country is really substandard, the pass rate of our school leaving exams keep going down. We are at a point where something drastic has to be done to turn things around. A lot of money is being spent on Education but results leave much to be desired.

Fifty-five years of independence and our education is still run like how it was when Sir Ketumile Masire was a teacher at Seepapitso Senior Secondary School. Food is prioritised over educational material like books, laboratory equipment and other teaching aids. Food is important for kids to be able to learn properly but if you spend all the money on food and the Science Lab has no equipment you will not have an innovative nation.

The solution is to privatise all kitchen facilities in schools to the youth and women who are already running catering businesses in the streets of Botswana. The government should cancel the school fees and only ask parents to pay for food. For children whose parents are not able, then government can help through the Social and Community Development office.

Instead of the government running an expensive food program, it would be buying food for the few students who are unable. The food quality will also improve being from a private company.

Schools should also end at 13:00pm and parents who do not want to pay for the food can take their kids to eat at home. Study that is mandatory at school has not been working for a long time now. This is just a time where students and teachers play a cat and mouse game. In the past study was helpful so that students can be able to do their homework on proper chairs and desks, at a time when most parents could not provide these at home. This will also increase participation of parents in their children’s school work.

The time that is currently used for study can be used for extra curricular activities. Currently, teachers who do extra curricular activities with students have to do this after hours which causes another bone of contentions because they want to be paid overtime. This will allow students who do sports to go home early. Today, students get home very late and some use sport as an excuse when in fact they were up to no good.

Students who do not pass a grade should repeat! Automatic progressing of children to the next grade when they have not understood the concepts properly does not help anyone. The same students who get D at standard 7 will get F at Form 3. A student should start secondary and complete it in a single school. All schools across the country have a lot of space, government has to build more classrooms in all schools including primary schools.

This increase in classrooms should also coincide with the reduction of the teacher to student ratio. The teacher to student ratio must be 1:25, more classrooms across the nation will ensure that teachers deal with a manageable class size to be able to produce the best results. Government should engage better with teacher unions to ensure they improve the education sector.

In the Digital Age we need to prioritise Maths and Science more. Government should buy teaching aids for experiments, textbooks and fund school trips to places like BITRI, BIH, BIUST and others in the other fields. It is very important that government focuses on improving the quality of education and not just putting the most number of students through school gates.