For a very long time, the pursuit of knowledge was the ultimate goal of our education system. But gone are the days when power and improved livelihoods simply rested on knowledge.
The advent of the 21st century has rendered knowledge acquisition inadequate.
It is against this background that the framers of the Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Education had their eyes fixated on creating a rare blend of knowledge acquisition with development of the 21st century survival skills.
The essence of the senior secondary education is to address issues of poverty, unemployment and underemployment by ensuring qualifications obtained are closely linked with the demands of the labour market.
The curriculum states that: On completion of the two-year senior secondary programme, learners should have:
- Developed information technology skills as well as an understanding and appreciation of their influence in the day-to-day activities;
- Acquired knowledge, attitudes and practices that will ensure good family and health practices including awareness and management of epidemics (such as HIV/AIDS) that prepare them for productive life;
- Developed pre-vocational knowledge and manipulative skills that will enable them to apply content learnt, and attitudes and values developed, to practical life situations in the world of work;
- Developed an understanding of, and acquired basic skills in business, everyday commercial transactions and entrepreneurship;
- Developed foundation skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, communication, inquiring, and team work/interpersonal, to help them to be productive and adaptive to survive in a changing environment;
- Developed study skills required for further study and training.”
From the list, it is clear that the BGCSE curriculum fits the bill of the 21st century programme of study.
It has clearly defined outcomes. However, there are implementation challenges inhibiting skills development.
There is a weak link between what is desired and classroom practice. Professor Jaap Kuiper identified pre-service teacher training programme as one of the challenges.
He contends that the teachers were not sufficiently equipped to navigate a skills development programme. “The problem lies mostly in the fact that teachers have received their teacher-education from institutions where, and in a period when, transmitting content knowledge was the main - and mostly indeed the only – focus for teaching.’’ There is therefore an urgent need to overhaul teacher training programmes to churn out the 21st century teacher and retool serving teachers.
