Article #11

            Botswana is a country located in southern Africa. It is a landlocked country. Botswana is a mineral rich democracy that gained its independence in 1966. This article deals with Botswana’s attempt to teach democracy to its students. The article looked at pre-service and in-service education of Social Studies Teachers in Botswana.

            Historically Botswana was a colony of England prior to its independence. Prior to England it had tribal attributes. For 100 or so years Botswana had traditional English teaching of English and Arithmetic. Students had Christian names as well. Since 1966 Botswana has embraced democracy. In 1977 Botswana produced the Education for Social Harmony a document that listed an itemized five aspects of democracy that all Botswana students should be educated in and on.  This article looked at the abilities of pre-service and in-service educators when teaching democracy. The teachers were evaluated from May through July over a 3 year period.

            The government wanted specific areas of Botswana and democracy taught. Curriculum should teach the democratic institution, and should incorporate practical experiences of a democratic institution. Natural resources were taught. Botswana self reliance concepts were taught. National identity and unity was taught.

            After evaluating 72 Social Studies teacher it was evident that teachers themselves had trouble teaching to this platform. Democracy was difficult to teach. A lack of African texts by African authors was evident. Teacher student ratios were inadequate. A lack of interaction with community leaders was evident. Funding was an issue as well as proper training for teachers pre-service. All of these issues were apparent with the findings of the survey. On another note, teachers thought they did a good job teaching Botswana democracy, however the evaluations of supervising teachers were not as supporting.

            This was an interesting article with interesting issues. Coming from an established Democracy, it’s easy to see what’s at play here. Botswana is looking to educate its people on the virtues of democracy. A country with its people behind it is better than a country without its people. It was interesting to notice a lack of training in other forms of government from a contrasting standpoint. The more we open the eyes of students to the world around them, the better off we’ll be in allowing people to form their own opinions and judgments’. Too much of a good thing can be an issue, and this focus on Democracy may have its pitfalls moving forward.

Adeyemi, M. (2002). An Investigation into the Status of the Teaching and Learning of the Concept of Democracy at the Junior Secondary School Level in Botswana. Educational Studies (03055698), 28(4), 385-401. doi:10.1080/0305569022000042408