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.
