33.4% of the students who wrote the Form three examinations have passed, which means they have got a C or a better mark. 66.6% have failed, which means they have got D or worse. Now this is what happens every year. Every year the results get worse. Every year the blame game begins. Sometimes it takes on sheer comedy. The teachers from schools with an impressive pass rate celebrate a wonderful performance by their students. They actually do something a little bit more. They claim and own the success of their students. They announce to all who care to listen how their school has worked tirelessly to get to the top of the table. In effect they are celebrating the products of their labour. Some point to how their school heads have worked effectively with the HODs to ensure that the results are outstanding. This moment; their glorious moment, will not be concealed. That is one view.
Then there are teachers from the bad performing schools. No, they do not own their students’ failure. It is not the teachers’ fault. The reasons, perhaps excuses, are a legion. They say: “Look! The best schools are from the cities. We are only teaching in rural areas. Parents in cities are interested in the education of their children whilst parents in rural areas don’t care about education. That is why children in cities pass.” Obviously they do not explain city schools which have performed terribly. “Some of these students in rural areas don’t live with their parents. Some of them live in rented accommodation. Exactly, how do you expect a child in such a terrible situation to pass?” And still more excuses: “Some of the children come from very poor families which don’t value education. The learners don’t even have electricity to do their homework. How do we expect them to pass?”…. And even more: “Ka na schools in rural areas are under-resourced, while city schools have all the resources. That is why there is a higher pass rate from urban centres.” “Just look at the catchment area of the city schools; they get children from private schools while we are only fed with D students.”
What about teachers who teach in urban centres whose school results are bad? They too have excuses: “Our learners are not interested in learning! They are just couch potatoes. They spend time playing computer games and watching television. How are we to expect them to pass?” Not only that: “Children in cities face numerous challenges like drugs, early sexual activity, lack of respect for parents and sheer lawlessness.” Here is a lesson of the ages: teachers will always claim responsibility for students’ good performance but they will always blame other factors for students’ poor performance.
We live in a strange period in which very few people really care about public education. The situation is so bad that it appears that we are actually intentionally training students to fail. We are responsible for irreversibly destroying the lives of young people; condemning them to live on the margins of the society in the 21st century. We automatically promote failing students from one level to another without worrying about their critical competencies. While in the 1980s failing students were not allowed to move from standard 4 to standard 5, these days they march on confidently. While in the past failing standard 7 students were forced to repeat before proceeding to form one, now such a hurdle has been removed. This means that junior secondary school teachers are expected to work miracles on students who shouldn’t be at junior secondary school in the first place. Even mobility of students from form 3 to form 4 involves the automatic promotion of undeserving students. We therefore even have students with Ds who make it into senior secondary school. This desire to be inclusive is killing our education. How can we have a 33% pass rate?
The problem that the country is facing now is because regardless of the rhetoric, we are not really serious about education. We have not fully grasped the importance of education to a nation, to a people, to a family, to an individual. We have instead fallen into a terrible routine of yearly examinations. If we treated education as critical to the health of this country as medicine is to a human being, then we would deal with the education of our children much more seriously than we currently do. The first place to start would certainly be to ensure that the Ministry of Education is led by individuals with a transformative vision. For our education to be top notch it cannot be business as usual. Like Singapore we must ensure that our children are taught the finest curriculum by the finest teachers. We must recruit the finest minds into teaching; fire useless teachers and administrators; increase teachers’ salaries significantly and resource our schools with the finest materials. I know there is a need to partner with parents; however that as well depends on the school management and school targets. Sadly we have allowed the Botswana education system to be paralysed while the lives of children with great potential are destroyed annually by our lack of planning and organisation. Poor educational results have severe consequences to the future of Botswana. Our educational system churns out unemployable individuals whose capability to care for their families and relatives is diminished considerably. Such individuals later become a burden on the state because they will not be able to afford well-paying jobs. When the education system fails, it generates individuals who will be unable to afford private health care and therefore are likely to die of preventable and curable diseases. When our educational system fails it produces individuals whose rights will tomorrow be curtailed by their inability to afford private legal representation. When an education system fails, it engenders poverty, crime, unemployment, ignorance, violence and other unintended consequences. What will it take for us to sort out Botswana’s education system once and for all?
