Issues in education

D.Molefe
O.Pansiri
S.Weeks | Monday May 27, 2013 00:00

Botswana is still not fully confronting the problems created by the way remote primary schools and their associated hostels are run.A positive step has been implemented since 2010, the provision of teaching aides in some remote primary schools. Some of the places that have benefited from this initiative are Kacgae, Kuke, D'kar and Zanagas Primary Schools. The Thuto Isago Trust in Gantsi District started to train teacher aides in June 2010, funded by Non-state Actors Capacity Building Programme of the European Union and Government of Botswana.This is welcome, but the problems are so great that reform and structural change are required. What is necessary is small schools, multi-grade classrooms and community-based initiatives.

Where boarding is essential, it should be done in small units (like at SOS Villages)-not in massive hostels with over a hundred pupils and minimal supervision-and with hostel aides or house mothers who speak the local San languages.  Issues has discussed this problem in detail in previous columns, but large hostels for rural primary schools continue to be built that are rarely properly staffed, managed and supervised, thus only perpetuating the problems.Over 30years ago Professor Ulla Kann of the National Institute of Research and Documentation (NIR&D) chronicled some of these problems. The San peoples through their various agencies have cried out for change. Doctoral studies like John Ntseane's and Nkobi Pansiri's have documented what is happening and made positive recommendations. The Kuru Family of Organisations has tried to seek solutions. Willemien le Roux has written about it in her various books.

The conditions faced by pupils in remote primary schools are appalling. However, there is silence. Issues honours Kelapile Kayawe of Tobere village, NE Okavango District, eight years old who died alone in the bush. She ran away, trying to walk home, her absence not being noticed by staff for five days. 'The BDF was called to help and her body was found on Wednesday, the 28th [October]. The young girl had travelled for five days, over a distance of 155km from the hostel in Xakao. She died of hunger, thirst, and exposure in the bush, far from her home. She was buried on Thursday, the 29th, without a post mortem examination, due to the condition of her body.Community members are quite concerned that this is yet another example of the school system not meeting the needs of their children and of care in the hostels not being what it should be' (Mr Splash Hepuru Moronga writing in the Ngami Times.

Spencer Mogapi wrote about this incident in the Sunday Standard of 19 November 2009. Lauri Kubuitsile asked, 'Will this girl's death change anything?' The authorities apologised, but have the schools and hostels changed?Because of the limited supervision available in these primary school hostels other types of abuses occur. It was reported in 2006 that a boy died from bullying in the Kuke Primary School RADS hostel. He was in Standard One and about nine years old. The post mortem report said he died of head wounds from beatings. The school claimed he had fallen from his bunk bed. No supervisors were present.

Mrs Beppie Wessels found during a field registration trip in November 2009, that all the children from the farm he was from were still being kept at home, as parents were afraid, 'that all their children would die in that hostel'.The Thuto Isago Trust tried to find other places in other schools for these children in the Gantsi District.  They say that, 'The main problem remains lack of supervision at night'.Last year after a tragedy at New Xade School, a former field officer of the Thuto Isago Trust was hired as hostel caretaker who knows Naro, Kaukau, Kgalagadi, Herero, Setswana and Afrikaans. This also is a positive step forward.

A visit to the schools will reveal overflowing sewage, stagnant water, broken windows and doors, hostels without lights and no organised activities for the children after school hours. Worse is the sexual abuse experienced by some female pupils. This is not an atmosphere that promotes learning.Hostels were built with good intentions of access and inclusiveness in the provision of education, but evidence suggests that they are not helping the education system achieve its mandate and suffering continues. Next week Issues will look at a more recent incident.