The exodus to private education
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Friday January 22, 2016 14:50
Parents and other observers generally agree that there is an exodus in motion. Each January of the past few years has seen an osmosis of children from public schools to private ones, as parents do their best to afford quality education for their offspring.
Learners already in the public school system shift to the private sector, while school debutants increasingly prefer the English over the Setswana medium.
Where private schools were the preserve of the wealthy in times past, their proliferation, the greater competition among them and the need to respond to growing demand, has seen many introduce flexible and competitive fees.
The trend can be traced back to five years following the industrial action in the public service. Many have fingered the declining or poor quality education as the cause of the developing trend, while most observers and experts say the increase in the number of students enrolling in private schools is due to the plummeting quality of education in public schools. With parents now perceiving private schools as better, many private schools are mushrooming to capitalise on the situation.
Not revealing how much she spends on school fees, Mellisa Kgotlaesele said that she sends her child to Regent Hill School not because she has a lot of money, but because she wants her child to get the best education. She says that at least her child will attend primary school until Standard 5.
“As a child I did not attend English medium and I think it disadvantaged me. I am not moaning over it because I know my parents could not afford it, but who knows, maybe with the right foundation as a child I might have excelled in my studies,” she says.
“I want my child to learn English at a young age because it can boost her confidence levels as well as her understanding of issues. Teaching has changed at public schools because today’s teachers have unionised and are always complaining.
“Bogologolo ne go ruta batho ba bagolo, bane ba re tsaa jaaka bana ba bone. Go ne go thusa.”
Kgotlaesele says she cannot say the fees are high because education is very important and as such can be expensive, adding that she is helped by her child’s father to pay the school fees.
Another parent whose child is yet to start school says that when the time comes he will not hesitate to take him to the best school in town. He says the public education system is riddled with problems that may take forever to resolve.
“I prefer private schools over public schools because we all know that many failures come from government schools. Teachers are not serious anymore. Se ba se batlang ke chelete. Ga bana sepe le thuto ya bana ba rona. Goromente le ena ga a tlhwaafalela go baakanya seemo se,” said Ketlhalefile Bob.
However, Bob says that not all public institutions are bad. He says the most affected by the declining quality of education are those in the rural areas whilst those in semi-urban and urban areas fair better.
“We cannot paint all of them with the same brush. Others have been doing well. Maybe if the Excellence Awards hosted by the Botswana Examinations Council every year included those in the private schools. It would raise the level of competition. Pupils in public schools would work hard to beat their counterparts from private institutions.”
Neo Agisanang shares Kgotlaesele’s sentiments that it is not about the money anymore, but what is best for the child’s future. She says private schools have a proven record of good performance, but parents have preferred government schools because they were not ‘all that bad’. However, looking at the results of the past few years, one is compelled to enrol their child in a private school if s/he cannot secure a spot for their child in one of the better-performing government schools.
“The price factor is no longer an issue because parents are saving for the education of their child long before s/he is born. Sometimes you don’t even realise whether the fees have been relaxed or not. I send my boy to Legae. He started Standard 1 at public school, but I later took him out to a private school. He is now doing Standard 2 and maybe I can take him out (of private school) after he completes his primary because he would have learnt a lot there,” she says.
The Principal at Botlhale Cambridge International School and Chairman of the Conference of Heads of Private Schools in Botswana (CHOPS), Andrew Jones says that the issue is complex, as there are many factors. He says that the increasing number of private schools could suggest that parents are now considering private schools over public ones due to the quality of education the former offers. Jones, who worked for a government school for nine years, says this could also be linked to the economic status of individuals and what an individual thinks is best for his/her child.
“It is a tricky one to tell, but it may depend on a number of factors. In urban areas there are a large number of private schools with varying fee structures. The fact that, if parents can afford to, they send their children to private schools indicates that the private schools are providing the quality of education that the parents are looking for,” he says.
Although parents cannot be faulted for choosing what is best for their children, this migration of pupils from public to private schools could in the long run have an impact on employment creation in the teaching service, especially if problems in the education sector are not addressed quickly.
If the number of pupils in public schools declines, it could lead to a collapse of free public school education. Not only that, but the teaching service may not be able to adopt as many teachers as possible with many of them having graduated and currently surviving on temporary employment.