Public education system is sick- Khumoekae

Addressing delegates at the weekend Botswana Teachers Union (BTU) national elective congress, Khumoekae said the situation needs an urgent cure. “We are faced with self-created situation, somewhat, a self-imposed misery in that our education system churns out not only unskilled graduates, but sadly those unskilled graduates far outstrip available jobs within the said system.

“Our educational curriculum has placed us in a dangerous crisis that speaks of the youth bulge which is a catalyst to possible economic, social and political instability as youth unemployment records a double digit and is on an upward-spiral motion,” said Khumoekae. He said youth constitute 44% of the labour force but 70% of the unemployed. Furthermore, he said that junior secondary schools produce about 20,000 dropouts every year with no industrial skills who join the “capitalist reserve army of the unemployed”.