BOPEU�s position on the exam results fiasco
Correspondent | Friday March 4, 2016 11:56
This educational embarrassment is not new; it has been a national trend for some years now. This year we continue to see more youngsters at grade D being advanced to BGCSE. This effectively translates to the poor performance we have just experienced. Unfortunately, this educational embarrassment is not only about the moment. It is about the bleak future of generations as being built by an education system that does not address immediate concerns with the urgency they arise; the urgency they so vehemently require. To address this fiasco, we need as a country to act on an urgent basis to amicably find resolve. As a country we cannot take comfort in the subject of deteriorating education system without visible action. BOPEU appreciates that a number of efforts have been made to improve the condition of service for the teachers. That notwithstanding, must tally with an improvement of results.
Our-contention:
We continue to implore that it is time the Government of Botswana urgently implements the three education Ministries system. It is our view and conviction that dividing the Ministry of Education into three functional special areas to serve the country and the people of Botswana, will ignite better performance and bring about an improvement in the results. This is because, there will be more focus by the assigned Ministry to see an improvement in their area, as they will be each held accountable for a more manageable chunk of the Ministry. This will also bring efficiencies in the Management systems within the Ministries, extending to the teaching staff. It is our believe then that this will bring not only peace and harmony amongst the teaching staff, but will most importantly drive the motivation to achieve the desired results envisaged for the future as embedded in the vision of this country. This will further cultivate and produce the zeal and energy needed to move beyond today with outmost vigour and produce the right quality of educated, skilled and upright citizens to take this country forward.
Concentration on education is an urgent need; in the short term it will alleviate the high unemployment rate which the country is struggling to curb, and in the long term it will continue to be a positive indicator for growing the economy. Our education results cannot be separated from the labour market dynamics because all these function within the labour supply chain. Developing a quality education system has its impact translating in a productive labour force, and the opposite is otherwise an unproductive sector coupled with a population that is highly dependent on government, which would not survive elsewhere, anyway and anyhow. Poor results, which lead to high unemployment is exacerbated by our inability as a society to create alternative sustainable employment means. Citizens are all expecting jobs from the government and naturally so, when failed by the government education system, it becomes almost impossible to become a part of the mainstream society where they can compete and create employment for themselves and others. We appreciate that our ever growing population has not been kind to accommodate the level of educational developments needed to grow this country, and we are also of the view that action has been very minimal. The continual lack of Botswana to prioritise education, if allowed to continue, will bring disastrous results in the end. No one wishes to see a revolution of young people in future addressing the issues of unfairness and educational injustices perpetuated by the past, and hence there is an urgent need to resolve this disaster.Since our position is that the Ministry of Education in its current format is unnecessarily huge for a country that has developed like ours, our firm proposal continues to be that it is high time the Ministry of Education is divided into the following three Ministries and given the following focus:
(a) The Ministry of Pre-Primary and Primary Education; A full Minister at this Ministry will be in charge of both Day Care, Nursery, Pre-School, Reception and Primary Education. These will include the necessary operatives covering the Teaching Staff, Teaching Administrators, Researchers, and Directors amongst others. This Ministry, like the two others proposed below, will also be responsible for safeguarding and taking care of its own infrastructure, study materials and necessary resources amongst other things.
(b) The Ministry of Low and High Secondary Education; At this ministry a full Minister will be in full charge of proliferating secondary schools and the associated challenges related to managing a teenager. This growth of secondary schools is a result of a growing population and every growth in population brings its own challenges. The Minister at this Ministry will also address the plight of the Teachers who for a long time have asked to be engaged in finding resolve to their woes. Their appeals for engagement on welfare, housing, allowances, terms of employment and progressions etc. continues to be almost impossible to resolve due to the hectic schedule of a Minister who has to run such a huge Ministry.
(c) The Ministry of Tertiary Learning:
In our neighbouring countries, Tertiary Education is up in flames, riots are a daily affair. There is a Setswana saying that “ere o bona bodiba bo jeleng ngwana waga mmago, obo kakobe”. Back home in Botswana, at the time of issuing this communique, several Technical Colleges around the country have been closed due to strikes and fear of escalating violence, Private institutions are no exceptions. The University of Botswana is forever in clashes either between students and the Government or the students and the University of Botswana Management. These scenarios cannot be simply ignored or wished away as they are a clear manifestation of things not going right. We are not apportioning blame, we are simply raising a red flag that the government of Botswana needs to act progressively and with outmost urgency to ensure that different needs are handled with the due care.
Synchronisation:
Though every Ministry will be independent from each other and receiving its budget directly and independently from government,, the Botswana Qualifications Authority (which has just been established by merging both the Tertiary Council and the Botswana Training Authority) should, together with the Botswana Human Resource Council, be tasked with close monitoring of standards at the respective Ministries. This will simply be done through not only examination results, but also relevance of subjects in each school so as to ascertain if they meet global development and education demands. This will further ensure that concerns over the Botswana Examination Council grading system and associated worries will be addresses at this level and hence reducing conflict of interest which often unnecessarily result in a blame game. Furthermore, this will inform the relevancy of upgrading the syllabus on regular basis to align it with global emerging trends. We cannot be holding unto a 1966 syllabus model in the year 2016 and yet expect 2016 developmental relevance.
Conclusion:
The issue of compensating the poor performance of our children with the constant and continued lowering of the uptake threshholds does not serve as a solution to an ailing education system. What is important is to build efficiencies within the management and operational systems of concerned entities and ensure that sustainable solutions take course. Automatic promotion of students will surely not be necessary when the right structuring, attitude and energy is exerted or ignited within our systems. Independent Ministries will have the prerogative to do all it takes to remain relevant and competitive where they are held to account. With proper monitoring systems in place we see a leap from the current mediocrity to an excellent performing system. Within this system, the nation should not be ashamed to repeat students who fail, giving them sufficient chances to mature and perform better before being progressed. It does not make sense for a student who got a D mark at lower secondary school to be promoted to high secondary as this is deferring the burden to a high institute. We are open to engaging the Government of Botswana and interested parties separately on these matters, and we only thought it best to open this discussion, which we consider as pertinent to our economy.
Cde Topias Marenga General Secretary, BOPEU