Govt�s ineptitude costs young man career
Greg Kelebonye | Wednesday February 4, 2015 17:00
The young man sat across the table as tears ran down his face. Throughout the interview he had clasped his hands, and bitten his lip, trying to keep a strong face. But suddenly, as his eyes assumed that distant look, the doors to his tortured soul opened, and all the pain, and the tears, that had remained pent up inside him for seven long years came pouring like a torrent.
“I have lost count of the number of times I have contemplated taking my life. I have almost come to accept that this is my fate. So what do I do with a future that is no future?”
Your typical A* student, Motlhanka Montsho will accept a job to clean toilets, weed a yard or herd goats. “I am especially pained by the fact that I was left with only the board examination to qualify as an audiologist,” he says between sobs. It is a classic case of civil service ineptitude and how it can destroy an individual’s life.
Motlhanka had 43 out of 48 points at high school, which makes him a top performer at any government school. He was admitted to study for a BSC (Audiology) at the University of Cape Town (UCT). “At the time, I understood there were only seven audiologists in Botswana. My choice of career was therefore not only informed by my love of it, but also by my country’s needs,” says Montsho.
With UCT’s acceptance letter in hand, Montsho approached the then Department of Student Placement and Welfare (DSPW) for sponsorship. They agreed to sponsor him, effectively giving him a four year lifeline under Category I. Students placed under the category were those pursuing critically needed disciplines in Botswana, and government paid 100 percent for both tuition and maintenance for them.
“The only problem though was the limited understanding of how programmes such as Audiology were structured at UCT. The university had two options for students: to pursue the programme: over four years or over a five year period. The university, as I would learn later, encouraged non-Xhosa and non-Afrikaans speakers to register for the five-year programme owing to the fact they would have to learn the two languages, which are the two most predominant languages in Cape Town, and students would have to attend to people who spoke either of the two languages. These are whole-year courses, which though not the core of the degree take a good amount of your course time. I was not quite aware of the five-year option until after my first year examination. Then I had failed Afrikaans whose syntax and phonology is very different from ours. I did not have much of a problem with Xhosa, I believe due to the fact it is a Bantu Language like Setswana.
I immediately went to see the Ministry of Education attaché to inform her about my performance and the fact that I should really have taken the five-year option. I also explained to her that I was not repeating my first year, but would retake Afrikaans in the following year to satisfy course requirements. She told me not to worry, but to come back when I completed my fourth year to adjust.” Montsho went back to university. His transcript records for all the years that he attended: “academically eligible to continue”. In fact Montsho was doing better than many of his 15 classmates as he had extra credits in Clinical and Community Psychology and Psychopathology. Come final year, Montsho went back to the education attaché to remind her that he needed sponsorship to finish the programme.
“Since government had only sponsored me for four years, the funds had run out and I could not continue unless I raised what was needed. So, I went back to the education attaché to remind her that I was in the five-year programme as we had previously discussed, and that I now needed sponsorship or adjustment.
This was in 2009. She reasoned that my request would be treated like a repeat since government had no provision for my situation. So, she advised me to go to Gaborone as she had no authority to deal with my matter. The ‘repeat’ was supposedly for the second time,” he says. Montsho’s transcript does not indicate that he ever repeated a subject or a year.
“I came to the DSPW, which is now DTEF and after going through the various offices, I was sent to the Deputy PS Golekanye Setume, who after understanding that I had never repeated, agreed that I had to be sponsored. He reasoned that since the documents from his officers stated I had previously repeated, government could, for the sake of progress treat my fifth year under Category IV, in which case I would pay for either tuition or maintenance. However, he said he needed to brief the minister about my case. Meanwhile, lecturers at UCT were calling to understand if they should go ahead and enroll me. I had essentially completed all written examinations and would be going for practical attachment – internship if you like - after which I would sit an oral interview before the Licensing Board. That’s all I needed to become an audiologist as I had passed every single one of the written examinations,” he says. Finally, Montsho was seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Unbeknownst to him, the university had made enquires with the ministry, eventually reaching the minister to ask how to proceed with Montsho’s case.
“When finally we went to the minister’s office – I was with my mother – he was very angry and asked if I was the one that university professors were bothering him about. He told me the government would not sponsor me as I had exhausted my chances. The minister did not even want to hear my side of the story. Had he the inclination, he would have understood that I had never repeated,” says Montsho. He cannot understand why, when the government had already spent nearly P500,000 paying for his tuition and maintenance, it could not pay as little as P35,000, which was what he needed to complete. Had government sponsored Montsho, he would today, be among Botswana’s handful audiologists.
Montsho’s lecturers are still baffled at government’s treatment of its own citizens.
“The young man was essentially left with a semester to qualify as an audiologist. I have written a number of letters to his sponsors, but no one has ever responded let alone acknowledge receipt. It is clear the sponsors simply didn’t give him a chance. At UCT, we were all shocked. Some staff members even offered to take care of his maintenance as long as the sponsor could handle his tuition…that has not happened. Someone simply shut the door in the young man’s face and in the process, took away seven years of his life,” says Dr Lebogang Ramma, who taught Montsho. However he believes Montsho still has a chance. “We have never really lost hope and have been sending him updates to keep him abreast of new developments in the field.”
He says the university can still accept Montsho. “At the time he left however, he needed six months to complete, but now owing to changes in curriculum he will probably need a year”. In the meantime, that is, until a good Samaritan comes by or government realises its blunder, the young man remains a statistic among the uneducated and unemployed. In between doing odd jobs and asking himself why it had to be him, he has contemplated suicide, and breaks down at the thought of how it would break his mother’s heart. “The only reason I did not kill myself is because I could not muster enough courage to do something as violent as hang myself. If there was a softer way, I would have done it. What purpose do I have after all?” he asks, tears streaming down his face.
A request for clarification from the acting director of the Department of Tertiary Education Financing, Eugene Moyo drew a “we can’t comment on issues about someone without their permission”.
Attempts to reach former Education Minister, Jacob Nkate, who is Botswana’s ambassador to Japan were futile as he was said to be travelling.