Blackboards of destiny: Why Botswana must revolutionise its schools
Dr Teedzani Thapelo | Monday September 8, 2025 15:33
At independence, the first leaders saw classrooms not as side projects but as the very forge of democracy. Literacy rose from under a third of the population to more than four-fifths within a generation. Schools rose in every village, universities were established where none had existed, and for a time, it felt as if knowledge itself was carrying the country forward. But those proud achievements belong to another era. Today, Botswana finds itself with overcrowded classrooms, collapsing roofs, textbooks that disintegrate in the hands of learners, and teachers who feel more abandoned than honoured. Youth unemployment hovers above thirty-eight percent. A generation of children is being drilled for tests, not prepared for life. To remain silent in such a moment is betrayal. The destiny of a nation is written not only in the diamonds buried beneath its soil, nor in the budgets debated each February, but in the blackboards of its classrooms. That is where the fate of Botswana is decided, every day, in chalk dust and silence. Why education matters Education is not merely a sector. It is the spine upon which every aspiration depends. If education falters, the economy collapses, democracy withers, health weakens, and social trust disintegrates. If education thrives, a society may endure drought, withstand disease, and even outlast the volatility of global markets. Philosophers of education remind us of this truth. John Dewey taught that to teach today as we taught yesterday is to rob our children of tomorrow.
Paulo Freire insisted that education is the practice of freedom. bell hooks described the classroom as the most radical space of possibility. Maria Montessori argued that the highest mark of a teacher is when children work as if the teacher did not exist. These are not poetic ornaments. They are imperatives for policy. What went wrong The wounds of Botswana’s education system are deep and layered. In the rush to expand, the nation imported curricula designed elsewhere, with little adaptation to its soil, languages, or labour markets. By the 1990s, reforms piled upon reforms, leaving teachers as exhausted soldiers in an endless bureaucratic war. Salaries stagnated, training stalled, and professional dignity eroded. The 2011 teachers’ strike was a cry not only for wages but for respect. It was a call from a profession stripped of its pride, a warning that the very foundation of national development was cracking.
Yet little changed. Promises were made, broken, and forgotten. The demoralisation of teachers became not an accident but a pattern—a National Demoralisation Project. Meanwhile, inequality hardened. Rural schools remained under-resourced, with learners in Kgalagadi or Ngamiland sitting under trees or huddled in dilapidated classrooms while their peers in Gaborone navigated digital platforms. Infrastructure declined into indignity: leaking roofs, absent libraries, broken laboratories, and no connectivity. Curricula, still wedded to rote memorisation, trained children to survive exams but not to shape their world. Graduates carried certificates that unlocked no future, while employers imported the very skills Botswana’s youth should have been trained to provide. What’s the 21st century demands The world into which Botswana’s children are born is not patient. It is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. It is a century of climate shocks, pandemics, technological disruption, and disinformation. Survival will not belong to those who memorise facts but to those who can reason, adapt, invent, and care. Education in this age must prepare students to live as citizens of storms, both visible and invisible. It must teach water literacy, climate resilience, food systems, mental health, media literacy, and civic repair. It must be as much about values as it is about science, as much about creativity as it is about coding. Technology, too, has entered the classroom with force. Artificial Intelligence is already saving teachers in the United States six hours a week on planning and grading. Globally, AI platforms personalise learning, diagnose weaknesses, and provide access for children with disabilities or language barriers. But unless Botswana designs with equity at the centre—offline tools, solar-powered devices, Setswana interfaces—technology will deepen divides instead of healing them.
What a revolutionised system would look like Imagine a junior secondary school in Ghanzi, two years from now. Solar panels hum on the roof. A library with real shelves and books anchors the school. A laboratory stocked with basic tools enables experiments tied to local realities. A reliable internet connection links learners to the world beyond. A principal coaches teachers in real time, not from forms. Teachers, freed by AI from paperwork, focus on mentoring and nurturing. A lesson begins with a water problem: students measure salinity, compute flow, and design a monitoring system, writing their reports in both Setswana and English. At the week’s end, some pupils begin apprenticeships at a local borehole company while others produce short films for a climate club. Parents check results and budgets online. Transparency is routine, not revolutionary. This is not fantasy. It is design. It is what a revolutionised Botswana school could look like. What a revolutionised teaching culture would look like At the centre of any renewal stands the teacher. If Botswana is to reimagine its schools, it must first restore the dignity of those who serve in them. That means salaries that reflect professional respect, career ladders that honour classroom excellence, coaching instead of policing, and a culture that sees teachers not as clerks but as intellectual leaders. In South Korea, teaching is a first-choice profession because the state protects its dignity, rewards excellence, and trusts its practitioners. In Finland, teachers are granted professional autonomy and are trusted to guide learning without relentless testing. Botswana can do the same. Teacher morale is not a side issue. It is the hinge of the whole system. A revolutionised teaching culture would mean teachers who walk into classrooms not with despair but with pride, inspired to inspire, motivated to cultivate imagination, and supported to lead their students into a future that is theirs to shape. The appeal to government and society The Umbrella for Democratic Change government under President Duma Boko now carries the moral weight of this challenge. For decades, leaders have promised reform but delivered only fragments. The time for half measures is gone. The call of the Botswana Sectors of Education Trade Union is urgent and righteous: revolutionise education now, in partnership with teachers at every level, or lose another generation to broken promises. The work ahead is not about slogans but structures: wiring every school for power and internet, stocking every library and laboratory, aligning curriculum with capability, linking vocational training with industry, making AI a servant, not a master, and anchoring the entire system in transparency and integrity. Above all, it is about turning teachers from demoralised clerks into the inspired leaders of a new Botswana.
Conclusion: The courage to choose Amílcar Cabral once said: Tell no lies, claim no easy victories. The truth is that Botswana’s education system is hurt, its teachers are tired, and its children wait. But the truth is also that nations can transform when they choose courage. Finland rose from the periphery to the top of global education. Singapore pivoted from coverage to competence. Rwanda rebuilt its system as a tool of civic healing. Estonia made digital platforms a basic right. South Korea lifted teachers to dignity and status. Botswana, too, can choose. Not by copying others, but by aligning vision, discipline, and persistence with its own realities. The dawn belongs to those who teach. The measure of a nation is written not in its mines or highways but in its classrooms. If Botswana chooses courage now, the blackboards of its schools will no longer be covered in chalk dust and despair. They will be the canvases upon which a New Botswana writes its destiny. *Dr. Teedzani Thapelo is the author of seven new books on Botswana’s postcolonial development experience, including Duma Boko Government and Policy Reform In Post-BDP New Botswana.