�Botswana failed van Rensburg�
Onalenna Kelebeile | Tuesday June 27, 2017 16:29
Speaking during a memorial service to honour the departed hero in Serowe on Saturday, Boko said had the country taken heed of what van Rensburg sought to inculcate in the nation, Botswana could have been the cream of education among all the countries with production at the centre.
“But we miserably failed to do so. Let us openly accept that we have failed him so that we can be able to redeem ourselves as a country,” he said. Boko further said that one would expect visible steps to have been taken on the 1993 education policy that sought to vocationalise education but nothing thus far. “It is a great regret.
I wish to be given a chance in 2019 so that we can bring van Rensburg’s ideas into fruition. Let us rededicate to ideals that he stood for and dream for education with production. Let us remake this country for the benefit of those in the sidelines.
It is not too late,” he added. Boko who is an alumni of Madiba Secondary School, which is one of the schools constructed by van Rensburg said the man was a genius who possessed a unique combination of discipline, bottomless energy and cultivated talent.
He added that van Rensburg will be remembered as an innovator who brought creative solutions to persisting problems in this country. Former president, Festus Mogae said it was not easy to talk about van Rensburg because he was a complex man who had achieved a lot. He also regretted that van Rensberg’s thirst for vocational education in the country had not been put into good use. “Ya rona brigade mo Serowe e re paletse.
We are not getting much benefits from the brigades as we should be, especially in Serowe where he planted the first seeds of vocational education. We failed dismally,” Mogae said. He added that van Rensburg was well known in countries like Senegal and Ivory Coast because of what he believed in - education with production.
“Our future generation will have to make use of his good ideas. We acknowledge his concept of education with production and he funded the first secondary school in the district. We owe him as a country,” he said.
Mogae associated with van Rensberg while he (Mogae) was a student in Moeng College. He engaged Mogae for the construction of a foundation of Swaneng Hill School in 1962 and that was during one of the vacations of the school calendar that had only two terms. “I came and dug. For the construction we worked with the likes of Modimoosi and Mokhutshwane.
I was then chosen by the British Government for an A Level education in England and we met again upon my return,” he said. He added that they used to meet at least once in a month and that van Rensberg was a principled man who used to oppose him as a Botswana Democratic Party member.
“He called me a capitalist. In his quest for education with production he believed we could do things for ourselves, but we failed him. We bought everything that we used for construction, but had we took his advice we could have bought only cement for the school construction,” Mogae said.
He is known to have strongly subscribed to the spirit of self-reliance in that even in the construction of the schools he would use the same students to construct. In some instances traditional methods such as mud bricks were burnt to make them durable, flat rocks and lime were also used.
“He was an open person who would praise or criticise me. Botswana National Front sometimes wanted to claim that he was their member, but he was not. He was neither our member as a ruling party nor that of the BNF. He was just a friend of both of us,” Mogae said. Brigades representative, Paul Mosimanegape said van Rensburg believed strongly that once human resource is developed vocationally everything else would align.
“He gave remnants a second chance in life. He learnt administration and management of vocational schools from Germany. He said despite his efforts to change the landscape of the country’s education status, brigades are collapsing and they need to be revived.
He added that this is despite the fact that the country is celebrating 52 years of the brigades movement in which van Rensburg laid the foundation. He added that there had over the years been unsuccessful attempts to disentangle van Rensburg’s noble model of education.