BOTSWANA: Meltdown impacts on new universities

Since the 1970s, Botswana's economy has rested heavily on diamonds and mining, cattle and tourism. Now the country has been severely affected by the world economic recession and the crunch has resulted in some mines closing and others stockpiling, reduced tourism, threatened exports to the European Union and a decline in government revenue.

These changes from a pattern of steady growth over decades have forced the government to draw down on reserves. The Ministry of Finance and Development Planning has called for a 5% reduction in recurrent budgets and a 7% reduction in development budgets across all ministries. Significantly for universities, the recession has also resulted in threats to current plans to develop tertiary education opportunities.

A commitment to build the country's second public university remains but the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) will not open until March 2011. Nevertheless, a groundbreaking ceremony was held recently at its site in Palapye 266 kilometres north of Gaborone.

Because of the budgetary constraints, the government may no longer support the expansion of private tertiary education opportunities. Students enrolled the previous academic year will be able to continue in 2009-10 but the Education Ministry will sponsor no new students in any private tertiary institution.

The ministry has overspent supplementary budget grants and can expect no additional financial resources in the future.

There is an alarming lack of support for higher education within the current government. Some cabinet members wanted a freeze on all intakes in 2009, private and public, while others proposed only funding public tertiary institutions, including the University of Botswana, and colleges of education, health and so on.

The government currently sponsors more than 19,000 students at five of the private tertiary institutions and some in government argued, as a compromise, it should pay tuition only but this has been rejected. Instead, no students will be sponsored and the numbers sent to public tertiary institutions will be sharply reduced.

The debate has ranged over whether higher education is a social service or an investment in the future and the more conservative views appear to have won out. This raises questions concerning the future of the private tertiary institutions allowed to develop in the last three years.

They have expanded capacity in 2007 and 2008 to absorb thousands of students to be educated within Botswana instead of sending them outside. An independent assessment of the quality of private tertiary institution is said to have found that the education offered by some institutions is not "worth the cost" and that some graduates are "unemployable".

The Tertiary Education Commission has denied any knowledge of this study and is still in the process of accrediting these institutions. This assessment may have led to the rumours.

Not only will there be no new funding by the government for tertiary enrolments in the private institutions, there will also be a freeze on new students sent overseas, except in medicine. The reduction in first-year intakes at the University of Botswana will be from 4,500 last year to 3,000 this year in August and only around 2,000 students will be sponsored to go to other public tertiary institutions.

The number of O level graduates in 2008 was 30,500 (not including citizens studying outside of Botswana); so only 17% will be sponsored for further studies leaving the rest to fend for themselves.

The Education Ministry will only sponsor students who have scored an aggregate of 40 points or above to attend public tertiary institutions. If this formula is followed, it could reduce the number sponsored by the government this year to less than 5,000.

Some observers have noted that, based on past levels of performance, far fewer than 5,000 students will have achieved an aggregate of 40 points. Institutions may admit students with lower aggregate performance but they will have to find a way to pay their own tuition and maintenance costs.

These decisions have already provoked an outcry. The public, through letters to the newspapers and talk shows on radio and television, have found this reversal in policies unacceptable.

Critics claim this will result in an education system catering only for the children of the advantaged. They say it will cause an increase in social inequalities as urban and peri-urban children, and those who have attended private secondary schools, are more likely to score 40 points and be sponsored. They will also be the children of parents or guardians who could pay for their fees and costs.

As well, the new cut-off does not take into account the differences between pure science students, and those who do well in mathematics, and other students. Those who excel in 'soft' subjects such as religion, Setswana, development studies and agriculture will gain sponsorship while science and mathematics students who do not achieve an aggregate of 40 (because of they are more difficult subjects) will lose out.

Graduates from schools in 2008 who studied the hard subjects and who would have qualified for university entry under the previous system will now find themselves "on the streets".

Such bureaucratic decisions also have generated a political backlash and may cost the dominant party for the last 43 years, the Botswana Democratic Party, votes in the next election. The Botswana Congress Party has already called for cost-cutting in other areas, including the bloated pubic service, reducing the benefits of parliamentarians, cutting the P200 million (US$27 million) to the new directorate of the intelligence services, and cutting the P300 million allocated to the presidential jet.

The party suggested a reduction in official overseas trips, abolishing specially-elected MPs and councillors and other cost-saving measures while also calling for continuation of enhanced opportunities for tertiary education within the country.

The immediate result of cuts to education will be a rapid increase in the numbers of unemployed youth. Already in 2009, the government has launched (at a low key and with minimal publicity) a National Internship Programme for unemployed university graduates.

It began on the 9 February with more than 1,700 'volunteers' who were placed in government departments scattered around the country. The scheme was to cost P100 million and a second intake was to be absorbed in March but this has not happened, although graduates who applied have been told they will now be recruited next month although the actual number is not known.

Now the government may be forced to consider reviving a pet scheme for secondary school leavers of the nation's first President, Sir Seretse Khama, a form of individual-placement national service called 'Tirelo Setshaba' that was abolished a decade ago after running for 20 years.

Botsalo Ntuane, a specially-elected MP, has called for parliament to reconvene to consider the economic crisis. It contradicts the national vision of "a graduate in every family by 2016", Ntuane said.