On the week of the discussions about the controversial Media Practitioners Bill, it would have been easy to miss the response of education Minister, Jacob Nkate, to a question about the status of the Selebi-Phikwe school of applied arts.

I missed the details, but I took particular note of the fact that there appears to be increased government interest in not only making policy and promissory statements about the development of arts and culture, but a conscientious initiative to recognise that area of enterprise as a potential contributor to the growth of the larger national economy.

Nkate updated Parliament about the delays that had happened at the project, and outlined a plan for when the project should be completed.

That, together with the plea of newly appointed Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, Gladys Kokorwe, for a national theatre, signifies a deliberate effort on the part of former president Festus Mogae, to pursue a programmatic plan for the enhancement of the prospects of arts development in Botswana.

Yes, the invitation to the artists to exhibit in the hallways of the ministries also impress, but they are indicative of a spontaneous response to the artists' call for the development of the area of economic development, rather than a systematic response to a pressing national demand.

Mogae left a culture ministry. Even that on its own, does not guarantee improved treatment of arts and cultural issues, over and above the disastrous appreciation of those matters at the good old Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs.

Ministries do not solve problems. It is the people inside the ministries who solve problems. I am told that the staff at the culture desk in the new ministry consist of about four people, most of whom walked out of the University of Botswana campus and straight into the government offices.

Not being particularly superstitious, I should not expect that they should achieve the miracle that would place arts development in Botswana at the place where it should be, in step with regional and international standards.

But I have not been to the office, though I spent more than enough time at the building on the Old Lobatse Road. Also having spent unpaid time at the Botswana National Cultural Council, I should be shocked that the latest of the directors there unashamedly admitted at the umpteenth meeting to establish an 'arts council' that she found nothing by way of records that minuted the deliberations that the BNCC held about that very subject.

Not surprising! In Botswana, the turnaround time for projects should be about 20 years.

I'll prove it. Some 20 years ago, Botswana artists asked for a national theatre. A multi-million Pula consultancy was put in place and did something, the results of which are a fresh call by culture minister, Gladys Kokorwe, for the establishment of the theatre.

It will be another 10 years before some national development plan actually erects a national theatre somewhere.

The country needed a national theatre 20 years ago. But the national theatre is only the closing statement at the end of the song. There must first be the proper grooming of music teachers in and outside the formal system of education.

There must be the invigoration of the community development departments in the district councils that must have outreach programmes to identify talent in the most rural of settlements.

The community development officers must have programmes co-ordinated by the district councils, so that the young artists can graduate from one stage to the next until they perform at the national theatre.

So the national theatre must not become a white elephant of the kind that we see at the Gaborone City Council, probably one of the leading institutions where the arts were celebrated at independence and immediately thereafter.

The place is in appalling condition, to say nothing of the grand piano that was once a sacred ornament at the centre of civic activity.

The National Museum and Art Gallery was also host to the establishment of the BNCC, also nurturing talent in music, basket weaving, painting, pottery and weaving of the Oodi kind.

Where is that grand piano, and why was it shifted from that place? The new administration, and the opposition members of Parliament who went to collect football skippers at the National Stadium must pay attention to arts development. We can't all be chasing the pig skin around the country.

There should be a piano in every community centre in the country so that the children can sing, dance, play and develop into performers worthy of the proposed national theatre.