Early in the week, we learnt that President Ian Khama had appointed Minister Kitso Mokaila to chair a cabinet sub-committee to look into the recent events surrounding the state of education in Botswana.
Looked at from a distance, it’s a smidgen ambitious first start undertaking to fix all the system’s ills by a President who has often┬á demonstrated a shockingly detached interest on all matters pertaining to education.┬á
This year’s school results have received a sharp commentary, including, we must highlight, from some corners of president Khama’s ruling Botswana Democratic Party.
Unlike the government tendering system, education affects so many of our people so much so that when things go bad, as they have done in the few years, no household escapes untouched.
Even a disinterested president has no choice but to be seen to be doing something.
But by assigning the matter to a cabinet committee we all are left wondering if at all the President understands what is at stake.
In no small measure our education system is now on its knees on account of what has happened at cabinet level ÔÇô at the hands of the same people who are now being asked to fix it.
Flowing directly from a carefully orchestrated cabinet agenda, the last five years have registered a declining investment on education while on the other hand there has been a rise on purchase of arms and hi-tech intelligence surveillance equipment.
Our cabinet has been at the nerve centre of an engine room that is now churning out the failures we see coming out from the tail end our education system.
And now the same cabinet crowd, which has brought us this appalling disaster, is being unashamedly called on to evaluate itself and advise itself on what could have gone wrong.
It is bound to be a misbegotten adventure with all the whiff of assigning a fox to guard over a chicken rooster! You will know things have come to a head the moment you hear that a former diamond smuggler has been appointed a security chief at Debswana. Yet that is exactly the case with this Mokaila-led cabinet sub-committee.
The parlous state of our education, especially the junior certificate, is now a matter way above pointless fiddling by ministers who do not know what to do with the time they have in their hands.
A solution could be to find people outside cabinet; experienced and acceptable enough to the BDP albeit detached enough as to inspire public confidence, especially on matters pertaining to education.
In here we need to pause and remind ourselves that for a government obsessed with loyalty hang-up such as Khama’s there is no shortage of the required skill inside the big pool┬á that makes up BDP veterans many of whom are spending their retirement days not knowing what to do with the many years of experience acquired during their days in active public life.
There is for example Gaositwe Chiepe, Ray Molomo, Archie Mogwe, Jerry Gabaake, Kebatlamang Morake and Patrick Balopi ÔÇô all of them former teachers with thoroughgoing educationalist credentials ÔÇô all of whom could be given the responsibility to lead an independent committee to advise cabinet government, at least on the immediate term to put a brake on the education crisis.
What is, however, most intriguing about Mokaila’s cabinet sub-committee, we must point out, is not its unparalleled dubious character. Rather it is the manner with which it was leaked.
Clearly the government wants to get political mileage from the disaster that has become our education system, the mess for which, however kindly wants to look at it they are themselves the chief culprits.
Under this government information and image management   are being taken to altogether new levels.
The British call it “spin”, but I doubt they even have gone to the cruel levels at which our government here has reached.
This is all the reason why more than ever before this nation, including those that profess to be in love with the ruling party need to be in a state of permanent vigilance.
We have a president who, when it comes to public information, simply is actively uncaring. He only gives out that information from which he expects something in return.
