19 November 2008
editorial
Something very tragic is happening in our education system. Perhaps it is more serious than the nation has been made to understand.
Our tertiary education system is falling to pieces right before our eyes. There are two reasons why it is important to note this: education involves billions of Pula of tax-payers' funds every year, and most importantly, education, especially tertiary education involves the harnessing of the most important resource, its people.Botswana is a relatively young country, consisting of a young and talented youth.
Government has had a keen interest in developing this human resource by allocating a major portion of the annual budget to education. The Ministry of Education has become one of the most strategic as far as the country's short and long-term future is concerned. By investing in young people, this country is making a statement about the future. Botswana will place great effort in securing a much brighter future for the youth. However, that future remains bleak if the current stories about the chaos in the tertiary education system are anything to go by.
The Ministry of Education, only a few years ago decided that it would privatise a good portion of the tertiary education system.Unlike the Ministry of Communications, Science and Technology, which attempted deliberate liberalisation of the air waves in particular, and telecommunications in general after rigorous legal and policy updates, the Ministry of Education somehow fumbled its way into a privatised tertiary education regime.
For example, there is no equivalent of the Botswana Telecommunication Authority in tertiary education, yet government spends more on the Ministry of Education than in the MCST. The Tertiary Education Council remains ill-prepared institutionally, legislatively and in terms of resources.It is inept and weak at the knees to play a role similar to that which the BTA plays in the telecommunication industry.
Yet it is in the education system that government should have an even keener interest given the future repercussions should the education system fail. It is as if the Ministry of Education forgot that the core business of private enterprise, private schools included, is to make profit, not necessarily to give quality service.
Government, on the other hand, is politically obliged to see to the implementation of a sound education system, perhaps at high cost today, as long as there is a larger benefit in the future.What we have now is a situation where students remain lampooned without the support of their government while their parents' taxes are poured into obscure causes. Minister Jacob Nkate and his staff ought to tune in and take the challenge head on, lest they be judged to be complicit in the squandering of our country's future.
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