At independence, the first leaders saw classrooms not as side projects but as the very forge of democracy. Literacy rose from under a third of the population to more than four-fifths within a generation. Schools rose in every village, universities were established where none had existed, and for a time, it felt as if knowledge itself was carrying the country forward. But those proud achievements belong to another era. Today, Botswana finds itself with overcrowded classrooms, collapsing roofs, textbooks that disintegrate in the hands of learners, and teachers who feel more abandoned than honoured. Youth unemployment hovers above thirty-eight percent. A generation of children is being drilled for tests, not prepared for life. To remain silent in such a moment is betrayal. The destiny of a nation is written not only in the diamonds buried beneath its soil, nor in the budgets debated each February, but in the blackboards of its classrooms. That is where the fate of Botswana is decided, every day, in chalk dust and silence. Why education matters Education is not merely a sector. It is the spine upon which every aspiration depends. If education falters, the economy collapses, democracy withers, health weakens, and social trust disintegrates. If education thrives, a society may endure drought, withstand disease, and even outlast the volatility of global markets. Philosophers of education remind us of this truth. John Dewey taught that to teach today as we taught yesterday is to rob our children of tomorrow.
Paulo Freire insisted that education is the practice of freedom. bell hooks described the classroom as the most radical space of possibility. Maria Montessori argued that the highest mark of a teacher is when children work as if the teacher did not exist. These are not poetic ornaments. They are imperatives for policy. What went wrong The wounds of Botswana’s education system are deep and layered. In the rush to expand, the nation imported curricula designed elsewhere, with little adaptation to its soil, languages, or labour markets. By the 1990s, reforms piled upon reforms, leaving teachers as exhausted soldiers in an endless bureaucratic war. Salaries stagnated, training stalled, and professional dignity eroded. The 2011 teachers’ strike was a cry not only for wages but for respect. It was a call from a profession stripped of its pride, a warning that the very foundation of national development was cracking.
