The scheme will cost at least P88 million in its first year. Each volunteer receives a stipend of P2,000 a month. There are also administrative and logistical costs. The costs will rise when and if the second phase of recruitment takes place. It has been stated that in the second phase unemployed graduates would also be placed in the private sector. So far there is no mention of any possible placements with non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The publicity has also been silent on what happens to the NIP participants when they finish their placements in 2010.

National Service is not new to Botswana. The country had a unique form of national service. It was called Tirelo Setshaba and began in 1980. It was intended to provide a year between finishing secondary school and entering a tertiary institution-in fact proof of service or an exemption certificate was a pre-requisite to further education.

It was an exception at the time compared to other national service schemes worldwide: it was non-military and at first involved individual placements in rural and remote areas in primary schools, health clinics and kgotlas. As the scheme grew it expanded into all areas of public service and urban placements. Its other objectives were to enhance the personal development of participants and to expose them to other languages and cultures in Botswana.

The last intake for Tirelo Setshaba was in 1999 with 6,600 participants. It was abruptly terminated after 20 years in April 2000. The evaluation 12 years ago (still available for P15 at the Government Printer) recommended that if it was phased out it should be done over five years (not one, as happened, causing the double intake bulge). It also suggested ways to make Tirelo Setshaba more effective and proposed the creation of a skills-based Botswana National Voluntary Service as an alterative if Tirelo Setshaba was abandoned. Other possible approaches to be considered included integrating Tirelo Setshaba into tertiary education or a post-tertiary service after graduating.

A modified national service would have limited the number entering Tirelo Setshaba each year to 5,000. The report made 19 recommendations on how Tirelo Setshaba could be made more effective and the criticisms against it rectified. It also described the form a Botswana Voluntary Service could take and what a version after tertiary education would look like. Different schemes are not mutually exclusive.

Another approach could make national service part of tertiary education. This would involve the careful integration of work experiences for one year with the study programmes, so as to make both relevant to the future careers of each volunteer. In this form of national service the volunteer both serves the nation and enhances their personal development through managed experimental education. Its greatest challenge would be the demand for new methods, content and approaches by staff at the various tertiary institutions in Botswana. The scale would be large as up to 18,000 students could be involved each year. Any post-O'level national service would now be even larger. The smallest programme would cater for unemployed university graduates, like the new NIP, but it too could grow if unemployment expands.

In the decade since Tirelo Setshaba, and until the creation of the National Internship Programme this year, nothing has been done to develop a new scheme to take its place, to develop any system of voluntary service for youth, junior and senior secondary school leavers and tertiary students.

With the world economic "meltdown" many countries are turning to various forms of national service to help keep youth and university graduates engaged in the development of their country. Next week we will look at some of these in the United States, United Kingdom, Ghana, Pakistan, Macedonia and Australia. This will be followed by a review of the lessons to be drawn from the experience of 20 years of Tirelo Setshaba.