Private Education System A Dog Without A Handler

Correspondent | Monday November 9, 2015 13:45

 

What has happened with the gorvenment localisation policy, who is giving these unqualified foreigners working permits while qualified Batswana are roaming the streets, how come a Zimbabwean can be appointed head of department for Setswana? Who is monitoring private education providers?

While the falldown in public education sector is heavily profiled, the most severe compromise in private providers has been overlooked.

Across private and English medium schools, Zimbabweans, Zambians who at most possess bogus, none or diploma teaching qualifications are preferred over Batswana at degree level. But on another serious note during my time instructing in English mediums I have learned that 90% of the Zimbabweans teaching in Botswana all have a military background and are ZANU-PF operatives.

Implications of this arrangement on national security should concern all. With Asians almost owning all private educational institutions in Botswana, the locals find themselves in a precarious position where they are not allowed to teach in their own country, where they don’t own the industry, where they pay  exuberant  school fees for makeshift education owned and pioneered by foreigners.

The government has given them free land, exempted these foreigners from tax and in return they repay by shunning citizens the most needed employment.

While I may sound outrightly xenophobic in raising this issue, the truth has to be said, where are the citizen benefits? Can’t the government realizs that its time teaching jobs be reserved wholly for Batswana?

If you are an immigration officer  and  you are processing  a working permit for a foreigner to teach social studies, English, physical education, history, agriculture etc, ask yourself how many thousands of Batswana are on the teaching service management  waiting list, who have been trained with government  funds and are  on the streets, how many Batswana teachers can gain the same in foreign countries, how many Batswana you are starving and depriving of the right to use their skills, to act on their own natural resources for survival.

We trust people to set schools in our country, provide our children with education, give them chunks of free land and exempt them from tax while on their side they can’t even trust us with anything. Are we so cheap?

Because we are just passive spectators and consumers, we find ourselves in a situation where we don’t know what is going on than churning out cash in desperation for imagined better education in private sector, but the truth is some of these English medium schools are just expensive Tswana medium schools, they can’t employ fellow Batswana citizens, they don’t pay tax, they employ foreigners who have only  interest in money  than education of your child. Worse still they cook results because they are in Botswana the land where dogs are without handlers.

B.Ntsima

Educationist