Unity Dow�s strange route of metamorphosis!
Michael Dingake | Tuesday January 31, 2017 16:54
The ideal ratio should not exceed 30:1 according to keen observers; c) teachers disgruntlement about unsatisfactory employment conditions contributes significantly to quality of results; d) late delivery of books is obviously a factor; e) inconvenient study premises count; f) drug abuse is a big issue; g) and poor supervision of learners matters, among others.
A quick glance at the grounds listed above, crystallises the chief culprit in the rot, to be policymakers and administrators. Parents are probably culpable for poor supervision of children at home and for failing to attend PTA meetings to interact with other parents and teachers on how to work together in the interest of children’s education; parents may also be constrained to assist children with homework due to incapacity; drug abuse takes root when kids are footloose, roam the streets and come under peer pressure to acquire bad habits; teachers are duty-bound to watch what kids do at playtime, the period they use to indulge in drug consumption and transactions; teachers should be vigilant; drug abuse is the nation’s mortal enemy. Parents, teachers and law officers should collaborate to uproot this canker. Scary rumours circulate that some law officers engage in drug peddling! It’s a challenge to the security agents. Gloves must come off to combat the drug abuse menace. Laxity is a luxury we can’t afford!
Of urgent importance however is Government apparatchiks who must stop pointing fingers and hiding behind parents and trade Unions on the periphery. Unions are effectively marginalised instead of being partners, to address common challenges in education. Government officials have a mandate they have voluntarily assumed, plus an oath of office under the constitution to adhere to delivery of quality public services. Batswana haven’t given BDP a blank cheque to formulate wrong policies, practise inefficient administration nor loll in indolence instead of hard-work! Hon Minister Dow must stop pleading to share the blame of her miserable basic education school results fiasco, with anybody. The buck stops at her door!
When elephants fight, the grass suffers. When the Government and teachers fight, it’s the learners and the school results, that suffer; it’s the same when Cabinet ministers and MPs jeer and dismiss opposition MPs’ advice in Parliament. Minister Dow’s allegation that those who criticise poor school results wait until the last minute, is preposterous besides being unsupported by fact. Opposition voices are hoarse from decrying declining education standards; BOSETU will soon be out of pocket chasing the Ministry inside and outside the courts! How can Minister Dow insinuate there’s been silence on falling quality of education?
While she was in the legal profession, Madam Dow was excellent. Could she have undergone a transitional metamorphosis on the road from law to politics? Strange! Law and politics belong to the same stable and are complimentary. Search me why the Minister is so livid when she is fairly criticized for her Ministry’s lacklustre performance. One would have expected some soul self-searching by the Minister, her Cabinet colleagues and the ruling BDP. Baring her teeth against a public, genuinely disappointed with sick examination results, isn’t a compliment to her! I used to admire Madam Unity Dow, lawyer, later popular Judge of the High Court of Botswana. I fell in love with her, during the Citizenship Case in which she fought tiger-like for women rights and equality with men. It was seductive, it swept me off my feet. She rewrote the jungle law applied by a reactionary Government posing as democratic, while it trampled women rights under foot! She deserved a standing ovation from her compatriots. Heroic, upright, star Motswana woman, taking the cudgels not just on her own behalf, but on behalf of the nation of women and future generations at large! A passionate believer in women rights and unacquainted with women of the calibre of the trailblazing suffragettes, who challenged the monopoly of privilege by men when the vote was conceived as a democratic tool. I was infatuated. At long last a Motswana woman diamond was discovered. Until then, I hadn’t known we had priceless diamonds in the backyards of our villages. Mochudi village in the district of Kgatleng led all the others!
My admiration of her soared when she was included in the panel of Judges in the CKGR case that pitted Basarwa against the misnamed ‘shining example of African democracy.’ The CKGR case ought to have taught the international community BDP Government’s shininess was a hoax. Her judgement debunked the ‘shining example’ myth about BDP government and projected her on the screens of slow-learning international community. Basarwa were discriminated against and removed illegally from their ancestral land, the CKGR! The BDP government practised apartheid, post-1994 RSA! A progressive and sensitive jurist, an accomplished non-practising politician who fervently believed in the freedom and equality of all, regardless of ethnicity, colour, race or sex, was born! I was ecstatic.
When she resigned as a Judge to join the party she had fought bitterly against in the courts, I wasn’t jealous nor disappointed. I thought, ah, well there are many ways to skin a cat; perhaps it was her way to skin the dyed-in-the-wool BDP pussycat. Now, I am disappointed!