The government negotiates to takeover secondary education
Sandy Grant | Wednesday June 3, 2015 18:00
Curiously, Serowe itself was without a secondary school until the founding of Swaneng by van Rensburg. In the south, the Bakgatla, Bangwaketse and Bakwena each possessed junior certificate secondary schools – Molefi, Seepapitso and Kgari Sechele, the Catholics were responsible for St. Joseph’s in tribal Kgale with the recently established Gaborone Secondary School being the one and only government owned secondary school in the country.
The meeting of 24th February 1967 in Mochudi was probably similar to those held elsewhere with the Deputy Director of Education, Gaositwe Chiepe, explaining the government’s intention to assume total responsibility for secondary education. Implicitly this meant that the four tribes were being asked to hand over what they had started.
As far as I know, there was no resistance anywhere to her request although concerns were expressed that the government was wanted either to close the junior secondary schools or to reduce them to primary level schools with Gaborone providing a secondary facility for the entire region.
The Deputy Director assured the meeting that this was not the case and that the government was intending to develop schools such as Molefi to GCE level.
In contrast to the minutes of meetings today which are likely to indicate that, ‘it was general or unanimously agreed that…’ this meeting concluded in the manner that was then customary with Chief Linchwe implicitly speaking for everyone present when stating that they were in agreement with the proposed change and would be ready to allocate an entirely new site should this prove to be necessary. Within a short time, an entirely new site at Boseja was allocated for the new Molefi School whilst the old Molefi became Seingwaeng Primary School.
The minutes of this one meeting are of interest not only because they record the views of only the two key people present, Mma Gaositwe Chiepe and Kgosi Linchwe but the person recording, the Education Secretary, Francis Phiri, felt no need to indicate in which capacity each person was attending.
No less than six of those people present were recorded by name only which is something that is unlikely to happen today when those who attend meetings do so as representatives of an institution or organisation. Almost nobody attends in their individual capacity.
Notably, however, it is obvious that by his listed arrangement of those present, Francis Phiri deliberately indicated that Chief Linchwe, Amos Pilane and Mokgatle Linchwe were representing the tribe whilst Norman Molomo, David Maine, Naomi Mitchison and myself were attending in our individual capacities.
It is slightly puzzling that Norman Molomo, the recently elected MP for Gaborone was present but not as a representative of the tribe and that Mochudi’s MP, T.W. Motlhagodi was either not invited or was recorded as being absent without apology.