Issues In Education

D.Molefe
O.Pansiri
S.Weeks | Monday May 3, 2010 00:00

The Botswana National Arts Institute (BNAI) is poised to become a reality. After more than a dozen years of planning and dedicated work by the Botswana Society for the Arts (BSA), it is on the brink of the development of the first phase.

The last two Issues have been devoted to explaining the background and needs for a National Arts Institute. If you have missed them you can find them easily, as they both are available on the web.

The Botswana Society for the Arts (BSA) is now a member of BOCCIM and has succeeded in getting the BNAI onto the government agenda via the Youth, Sports and Culture sector's High Level Consultative Committee.

The government a few years ago committed ten million pula for the completion of the planning stages. Now at least fifty million pula are required to begin construction, arranging for start up staff, and setting the foundations for the future of the BNAI.

This will only happen when the relevant ministries show a commitment to help develop the creative economy as part of the knowledge economy that Botswana is committed to achieve by 2016. More funds must now be allocated in the relevant budgets to see that the BNAI takes off.

What is required in the development of the BNAI is inputs from other sources so that it is a project that transcends the support from the government. It could be something greater than a private public partnership (PPP) if various overseas donors shared the vision and began contributing to the project.

In Zanzibar, the Dhow Countries Music Academy that opened in 2002, is sponsored by the embassies of France, Finland, Netherlands and the United States, UNESCO, NORAD, the Swiss Development Corporation and the Ford Foundation. BNAI is greater than just music, as it embraces the other arts, drama, dance, poetry and the visual arts. There is also the Bagamoyo College of Arts in Tanzania for training, research and professionalism in the arts. It is supported by the Arts Council of Tanzania.

The key lesson from Tanzania is the importance of traditional arts and how they can be integrated, encouraged and developed. It would be wonderful if, as a departing gesture to the development of the arts in Botswana and the creative economy petroleum giants, BPs and Shell, made significant donations to help to cover the costs of equipment and staff for the new arts institute. Corporations committed to Botswana can also contribute. Already Limkokwing, University of Cape Town and Native Impressions (as partners) have supported the Botswana Society for the Arts giving ongoing support, and others such as Bifm and BIC have funded specific projects.

The values contained in the National Human Resource Development Strategy apply directly to the BNAI. For example, 'It is about access, quality, relevance, excellence and developing a high performance culture' and 'What are required are new creative and innovative approaches to national human resource development which welcome and reward new ideas and paradigms ...' The vision of the BNAI as contained in its Strategic Plan includes outreach, working in the wider community. Its programmes will not be restricted to benefitting only people resident in greater Gaborone.

When the long-awaited Arts Council of Botswana commences, this will give a big boost to the arts in the country, provided that it is adequately funded. What is needed now in Botswana is for all people who enjoy the arts, who participate in the arts, who teach the arts or who are learning in any of the arts areas, to come forward and join the Botswana Society for the Arts and make donations earmarked for the construction and furbishing of the new arts institute. This would be a wonderful gesture, as it would demonstrate to the private and public sectors that there is a fourth 'P' behind the project, the People.

If you are not clear about this and want to learn more about it, plan to view the exhibit that will soon open at the National Museum in Gaborone, 18-30 May 2010, at the Octagon Gallery. It is entitled 'Botswana National Arts Institute-Phase One'.  Don't miss it.

Next week's Issues will review what has been learned about arts education and the lessons for the future.