Emphasis on pillar of education

Tshwarelo Hosia | Monday November 20, 2023 06:00

Coming from a colonial background of limited or no access to education, where an overwhelming number of children were callously shut out of schools, it was therefore, a legitimate call for the new African governments to place a high premium on access to education.

However, with the benefit of hindsight, it is clear little thought was given to issues of quality and relevance of the education on offer.

To achieve the goal of promoting access, African countries and Botswana being no exception, invested extensively in school infrastructure development. It was an oversight or error of judgement to focus on the beauty of physical structures without a corresponding emphasis on the beauty of the curriculum.

Little did it occur to the leaders that the education they were offering would offer short-term benefits and not necessarily contribute to a sustainable future. Leadership is about balancing the needs of the present generation with those of future generations.

Leadership is about seeing beyond the present and taking audacious and unpopular measures to prevent the demands of the now from compromising future needs. For over 50 years, much training focused on developing the human capital for economies, which were expected to predominantly yield white-collar jobs. Now the market for white-collar jobs continues to shrink and there is a frantic search for alternative job producing routes.

There is now a legitimate panic and anxiety for the future.

Challenges associated with the stress of managing under diversified economies with their concomitant soaring unemployment and underemployment figures continue to dog many African jurisdictions. While the situation requires urgent solutions, the stark reality is that there cannot be any quick or microwave fixes to complex and intricate problems dating back to the colonial period.

Attempts to throw money at the problems are proving helpful to the extent that they offer temporary reliefs but permanent and durable solutions remain elusive targets. The next 50 years require a radical departure from approaches, which gave birth to the present social and economic predicament.

There is a need to revamp the education system by placing emphasis on the presently underrated Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). Owing to its critical role on social and economic transformation, the whole TVET sub sector must be declared a scarce skills service worthy of special treatment and care. It should now have a bigger chunk of the budget.

There should be a total and unflinching war on the culture of academic underachievement. The pursuit of academic excellence should no longer be a luxury but a matter of life and death. Mission failure in the education sphere should not be an option. Our common future rests on a strong and versatile education system.

Achievements made in the last 50 years in the areas of peace, stability and democracy will depend on how well governments navigate issues of poverty, deprivation, inequalities, unemployment and underemployment. Present social ills, hitherto, triggered off by under diversified African economies, threaten accomplishments of the past. Some one said if nothing is done to address poverty, the poor will wake up one day (God forbid) having nothing to eat but the rich. One would be the first to admit that education cannot be a panacea to all existing social ills without accompanying investments in a wide spectrum of industries.

Nonetheless, the role of education as a catalyst in the socio-economic transformation crusade cannot be underestimated. Exactly where Africans got it wrong is known and well documented but the audacity and nerve to remedy past wrongs seems to be lacking.

Africans were taught to shed their Africanness, including abandoning productive activities which put bread on the table.

It is proving an uphill battle to unlearn these flawed teachings. In Southern Africa, it was the discovery of diamonds and gold which drew young able-bodied men to the mines to join the cash economy leaving behind the lands their fathers and forefathers tilled profitably for centuries. The cash economy was considered to be the fastest springboard to better and improved livelihoods. But the consequences of the mass exodus of young men into the mines and cities and towns proved disastrous.

The next 50 years should be used for damage control, revitalisation and reorientation of African economies and this demands revamping education to be a number one priority ahead of political expediency and education practitioners and parental excuses.

Education must be forced to deliver and there should be no room or excuse to falter again. Education should be re-tailored to fix problems it has helped to create. Continuing to train people for white-collar jobs, which are non-existent, is a waste of scarce and hard-earned resources. The perception that the academic route is more prestigious and rewarding than the technical and industrial anchored path must fall. Governments should act decisively to place technical and vocational education and training on a pedestal.

TVET institutions should no longer play a second fiddle to academic universities. Currently, owing to negative perceptions and under funding, the existing technical and vocational institutions are undersubscribed and running below capacity. Students attending TVET do not feel appreciated and cared for as much as their counterparts in conventional universities. Increased funding and support will change this perception about TVET.