Bame Piet
7 April 2008
Specially Elected MP, Botsalo Ntuane is without doubt a worried man. His dreams are to see every Motswana afforded free education.
He is totally against the re-introduction of school fees. The MP tabled a motion in Parliament on Friday requesting government to place a moratorium on cost sharing pending a review of its impact on access to education. He said that the cost sharing policy is the most controversial in recent years since many people are still living in poverty or are unemployed. He said that those who are lucky to be working are paid peanuts.
He added that the re-introduction of school fees in 2006 has subjected children from poor families to abuse by their peers at school. He likened the system to the old bursary system saying the dignity of the beneficiaries of the scheme was damaged since their peers stigmatised them. He said that even today, children who benefit from government schemes are stigmatised and they have no dignity. He contended that free education should be a government commitment to the welfare of Batswana. However, he said that some of the beneficiaries of the old bursary scheme are professionals today and wondered what could have happened to them had the government not intervened. They could have spent their entire lives at the cattle posts or in prison, he said and cautioned that the same thing might happen to students who are sent back home because their parents cannot afford to pay school fees.
Ntuane said that Botswana is a middle-income country with a small population and the government can afford to take care of the citizens' welfare, education and health. He said that the free provision of such services to the people is another way of distributing wealth.
He added that when government stopped payment of school fees in the 1980s there was an increase in school enrollment. He said that the reintroduction of school fees hurts the poor people most since the little money they are getting is diverted to school fees. He added that social workers take too long to assess families and it is the children who bear the pain of incompetent officers, as they are not allowed into classrooms. He said that people who can afford school fees send their children to private schools. That is why private schools are mushrooming everywhere in the country.
But the Minister of Education, Jacob Nkate defended the cost sharing in schools saying students whose parents cannot afford fees are allowed to proceed with their studies. Ntuane was reminded about a recent review classifying people who should pay fees depending on how much they are earning, how many cattle, sheep and goats they have, and how many children they can pay for depending on their income. The MP said that he had no problem with the initiative but he would like to see government doing more. There was confusion on whether he should withdraw the motion or amend it. The Speaker of Patrick Balopi said the onus is on the mover of the motion to decide what to do with it.
Ntuane suspended the motion pending the outcome of the current review and implementation of a new threshold policy that exempts parents who earn less than P1,200, have less than 50 cattle or 250 goats from paying school fees. The MP for Letlhakeng East, Gordon Mokgwathi had already supported the motion saying he believes in total abolition of school fees.
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