Regulation of school fees overdue

| Tuesday August 21, 2012 00:00

We commend this clear-headed conduct by MPs of the ruling party because it presents the MPs, for a change, as individuals capable of considering the merits of an issue without pandering to party positions. In recent times, the behaviour of the ruling party MPs within parliament has not done justice to their profile. They have projected themselves as not just obsessed with the narrow interests of their party but willing indeed to condemn anything and everything as long as it did not come with the stamp of approval of their party leadership. We saw this last week when they declared Botswana a closed society by jettisoning the Freedom of Information Bill without considering the merits of the bill at all. Within the same week, they then adopted a bill that seeks to tighten the party's grip over government media.  The hypocrisy of it lies in the fact that Vision 2016, which is a strategy to compel Botswana's 'socio-economic and political development into a competitive, winning and prosperous nation', espouses the goal of 'an educated and informed nation'.

Vision 2016 acknowledges the link between education and information. This is how: 'By the year 2016, Botswana will have a system of quality education that is liable to adapt to the changing needs of the country as the world around us changes. Improvements in the relevance, the quality, and the access to education lie at the core of the Vision.'The education system will empowe citizens to become innovators, and the best producers of goods and services...' This is how this future is to be attained: 'Botswana will have entered the information age on an equal footing with other nations. The country will have sought and acquired the best available information technology, and have become a regional leader in the production and dissemination of information. Botswana will have developed its communication capacity, particularly in the electronic media, radio and television. Batswana will be informed about the rest of the world.'However, the route to this golden future has been made nearly impossible by negating a bill that sought to entrench freedom of information while legalizing spying on the Internet and turning Radio Botswana and Btv into official propaganda tools of the ruling party. Even so, we welcome the adoption of the motion that, among other things, aims to regulate fees and infrastructure at private schools. This was done inspite of the motion being sponsored by Wynter Mmolotsi of the opposition BMD.

                                                                              Today's thought

                                    'Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.'

                                                                              - Edward Everett