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The year 2010 is upon us and we were looking at it with hope and lots of enthusiasm. Unfortunately, it has greeted us with sad news, notably, the Ministry of Education and Skills Development’s decision to trim outlays on post-secondary sponsorship beginning in the 2010/2011 fiscal year.
Importantly, is the decision a surprise given what happened in 2009? Thus, this two-part installment takes a peek into the issue of publicly-funded education and provides insights.
To put the debate in a proper context, it is important to note that education is considered to be a universal right. To this end, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 26(1), affirms the universality of education as a basic right saying: “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages.
Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.” Botswana is a signatory of the Declaration and, therefore, it is matter of legitimate expectation that she domesticates various articles of the Declaration, including 26(1). However, it is not is the Government’s position that education is a basic right.
The education’s legal/institutional framework was laid through the first National Committee on Education (NCE) in 1976. The NCE, appointed as a presidential commission of inquiry was, among other things, “charged with the responsibility of formulating the country’s philosophy of education, setting goals for the development of education and training, and recommending the best strategies to achieve those goals (Terms of Reference for the first NCE, 1976).”
The NCE gave birth to the National Policy on Education of 1977 which has seen subsequent revisions; for example, the Revised National Policy on Education (RNPE) adopted in 1994.
Largely advised by a developmental approach that is in line with the human capital theory (see e.g., Boissirere 2004), the Government invested massively in education as sufficiently exemplified by the construction of schools and introduction of a bursaries scheme for post-secondary school education in 1973 (Republic of Botswana 2005).
The scheme was modified in April 1995 through a grant/loan scheme whereby students are awarded grants and/or loans to undertake tertiary training (ibid). Largely, the education ministry has had favourable budgetary allocations even in the face of declining mineral revenues experienced in the 1990s.
For instance, when then President Festus Mogae spoke at the 30th anniversary of Maun Senior Secondary School, he announced that the Government intended to spend P675 million to upgrade all existing 27 Government and Government-aided senior secondary schools at an average cost of P25 million (BOPA 07/10/02). To this end, he stated that the education ministry had enjoyed an increasing share of the national budget since 1992 but, nonetheless, made the observation that ‘while it is agreeable that education is important, it is equally true that it is neither realistic nor sustainable for one sector to consume a bigger share of the national budget (ibid)’.
Public funding of education continued without major hiccups until the Government, through cost-sharing measures, asked parents to assist in the education of their children. However, major turbulences were experienced with tertiary education financing.
In early April 2009, the MoESD announced that henceforth, it would only sponsor students who scored 40 points or better in Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGSCE) examinations. In the wake of public condemnation, the decision was rescinded. Notably, the foregoing development was followed by court cases relating to cuts in off-campus allowances; Limkokwing SRC vs. MoESD and UB SRC vs. MoESD. Remarkably, the MoESD lost all the cases with costs.
To conclude, it is apparent from the foregoing that student enrollment has outstripped the MoESD’s ability to finance education; particularly at the tertiary level. Hence, the case for cost-sharing measures cannot be oversold. We next look at the proposed reforms and ponder where the next cuts will be; ARVs?
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