A low hanging fruit
Friday, April 25, 2025 | 310 Views |
The existence of two classes of subjects in the curriculum appears to be more of a perception rather than a reality. The attempt to make a distinction between, on the one hand, the so-called more taxing and exacting subjects and less rigorous and demanding subjects on the other hand is a creation of a very fertile imagination, devoid of any empirical evidence.
I used to have this illusion before I was properly grounded on curriculum matters. Before I began my five-year university education journey, I thought there were soft and easy programmes of study. While visiting a friend at the University of Botswana in 1987, I enquired about what programme of study he had chosen to pursue and he said a Bachelor’s of Arts in Humanities. Motivated by my naive and uneducated mind at the time, I confidently and unashamedly said he had selected an easy learning task.
It is not uncommon in this part of the world for parents to actually punish their children when they show signs of depression associating it with issues of indiscipline, and as a result, the poor child will be lashed or given some kind of punishment. We have had many suicide cases in the country and sadly some of the cases included children and young adults. We need to start looking into issues of mental health with the seriousness it...