Private schools crucial for our education system

Recently, the Junior Certificate of Education exam results were released. Although they showed a small improvement on the previous year’s results, they still make for dismal reading. And still barely 1% of candidates obtained an overall A grade; in contrast to the too many candidates who only achieved lower grades – D, E and U. And results in rural schools are even worse. Our public education system is in freefall, in the doldrums, and in shambles – it has dismally failed parents, teachers and pupils. This is despite the fact that in recent years the former Ministry of Education and Skills Development has taken a lion’s share of the annual budget. However, taxpayers’ money has not yielded the expected results. Clearly, we have to get our public education system back on track. As in most countries, parents here have the choice of where to send their children to school – public or private schools. In marked contrast to public schools, private schools are not administered or financed by government, and so they do not drain the public purse. Instead, they charge parents for tuition. Such fees may be beyond the reach of most Batswana and can easily exceed P20 000 per child per term, and even P50 000 at some schools in Gaborone. For this reason, many pupils come from the upper privileged echelons of society – the children of diplomats, cabinet ministers, presidents, wealthy business people… 

However, the middle class in Botswana is now rapidly expanding, and many Batswana in urban areas are becoming more affluent and so can now afford such fees. Such parents may now decide that private education for their children is worth the sacrifice when they see that the alternative public education system is on its knees. 

During his recent budget speech in the National Assembly, the Minister of Finance, Ndaba Gaolatlhe, told the nation that the new government is determined to cultivate a culture of excellence, diligence, innovation, service, and collective effort. And from my teaching experience here in both public and private secondary schools, I can testify that private schools perform better in these areas than do public schools. In contrast to pupils in public schools where rote learning is still very much the norm, private school pupils here are taught skills suitable for the 21st century workplace: critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving skills, plus the need to be more innovative. In fact, many employers today may consider such skills as important as academic qualifications – they look at the whole man! 

Private schools are much better resourced than our public schools. How many times I have visited junior secondary school classrooms which are dilapidated, and the torn notice board at the back only has the class timetable and cleaning rota, but is bare of any teaching aids. Teaching aids assist learning! But a private school classroom may be full of informative and colourful teaching aids – posters, manilla charts, models, smartboards… Plus a projector can make teaching come alive for learners. And these schools have better access to the internet and are well equipped with computer labs where pupils can learn basic computer skills; in fact, even pupils in the lower standards of private primary schools have access to such facilities! This is a step in the right direction, and again resonates well with Gaolatlhe’s budget speech in which he told Batswana that government has allocated P1.47 billion to digital transformation. 

And in private schools, one will rarely see pupils sharing three-legged chairs or writing on their knees simple because the lids on their desks have come apart. Neither will you see half a dozen pupils struggling to share one textbook, and in many classes there may be no textbooks at all! Private schools are moving fast to a knowledge-based economy which was all the hype during Masisi’s presidency. 

Teachers at private schools are often more motivated than their counterparts in the public sector. And many parents say that they prefer expatriate teachers, since they believe that their standard of English is much better than that of local teachers. Expatriate teachers working at these schools come from countries across the globe – Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, UK, USA, Australia, India… And foreign teachers are also more likely to ‘go the extra mile’ to ensure that their pupils achieve excellence. Interacting with expatriate teachers also exposes our children to the outside world; different ways of life, language, culture… Some schools also arrange overseas trips for their students – Malaysia, Dubai, Paris… Private schools are usually multiracial with their students coming from countries worldwide (unlike most public schools where almost all students are Batswana). Indeed, Maru a Pula school in Gaborone was founded as a truly multiracial school in 1972 during the apartheid era by the first Head, Dean Yates. It set an example to southern Africa at the time where many countries were ruled by white minority regimes. 

Compared to many other African countries, many Batswana who are educated in public schools have an ‘isolationist’ mindset and do not readily interact with other ethnic groups, or people of other nationalities. I live near Francistown, which is located in a Kalanga speaking area. And sometimes there I may greet in Kalanga a Motswana from the south. And even if they have been in Francistown for some years, they rarely understand what I am saying; in fact, on one occasion, one lady thought that I was speaking Afrikaans! No wonder, then, that most Batswana only know Setswana and English, whereas in many other African counties people may speak up to four different languages. For example, a Zambian may speak English, Bemba, Tonga and Selozi! 

Secondary school pupils in Form 5 usually follow the IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) curriculum, offered by Cambridge International Education (CIE), or the IB (International Baccalaureate) curriculum both of which are more internationally recognised than our BGCSE (Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Education). Whereas secondary school education in public schools ends in Form 5, in most private schools, pupils have the option of pursuing AS-Level (Advanced Subsidiary Level) and A-Level (Advanced Level) studies, again offered by CIE, over a period of two years in Form 6. Such qualifications permit students to have better access to top universities worldwide than if they had obtained only a BGCSE qualification. 

Students from Maru a Pula school often receive the Cambridge “Top in the country” and even “Top in the World” awards for their outstanding performance in both IGCSE and A-Level exams. For example, in 2021, Kalidas Rayirath was “Top in the World” in IGCSE Additional Mathematics. And 64 graduates are currently studying at some of the world’s top 100 ranked universities: Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Princeton in the USA, Oxford and Cambridge in the UK… 

Such students have succeeded in their personal careers and have gone on to become highly successful lawyers, professors, consultants, doctors, diplomats, managing directors and leaders in the corporate world, and many run their own businesses… Plus, presidents! 

I once taught Mmetla and Mpho, sons of the later former president, Quett Masire. Mmetla Masire is now managing director of Okavango Diamond Company. Alice Mogwe, daughter of former government minister, Archibald Mogwe, was also a student here, and went on to become Director of Ditshwanelo. And ex-pupil, Batsho Dambe-Groth, now runs Botswanacraft in Gaborone. But the icing on the cake must be former president Mokgweetsi Masisi who was once a student here from 1975-1979. I taught him during my time as teacher at Maru a Pula in the late 1970s. 

Many Batswana may consider such prestigious private schools as elitist, and only for the elite and ‘well connected.’ However, during its history Maru a Pula has awarded scholarships to underprivileged Batswana children, especially from poorer less developed rural areas of the country. And practical community service is one of the school’s core principles and is absolutely required of all students and full-time teachers each week. There are no exceptions, not even for future company directors, MPs, and even presidents (Mokgweetsi Masisi)! In this way, the school aims to nurture students who are deeply committed to helping their communities, both locally and internationally. No wonder, then, that one of the values of the school is compassion (along with integrity, responsibility, self-discipline and personal growth). 

Every Wednesday afternoon, Maru a Pula students taught primary school pupils at schools in Old Naledi. And we also used to visit the then Holiday Inn (now Avani Gaborone Hotel) to collect large buckets of surplus food which we would then take out to Gabane to feed destitutes (students also taught in primary schools here). At school I myself used to teach students how to make concrete blocks which we then used to build homes for destitutes in Gabane. At present, the school is engaging the students’ hearts, heads and hands in over 40 community projects which, amongst others, include caring for children at Cheshire Homes, Childline, Camphill and the Princess Marina’s children’s ward. 

And even back at school, students were taught the dignity of hard work. I used to run the swimming pool and I supervised some students who added chemicals to the pool each week. And once a year we would empty the pool and paint it before filling it up again. And this was no backyard pool – it contained 800 000 litres of water and resembled more an Olympic size pool! 

Legae Academy in Gaborone is also an epitome of academic excellence where teachers dedicate all their energy towards the educational success of their learners. In the 2023 A-Level examinations, Ayanda Kungo Boko won the “Top of the World” award for A-Level Economics, plus “Second Place in the World” award for A-Level Accounting. A future Minister of Finance? And in the 2024 examinations, Legae students also produced outstanding results – Ashwin Shine obtained 4A* and 1A grades in five A-Level subjects. And some 59% of grades at A-Level were either A*or A. Legae students also excelled at IGCSE level where one boy, Vishal Ready, obtained A* in eleven subjects! Also, like Maru a Pula, the school reaches out to local communities. 

From the above discussion, one wonders why the new government wants to stop issuing work and residence permits to expatriate teachers who wish to teach in private schools. If they do so, then many of these schools will simply close down. 

I once taught at Crescent School in Lobatse on a temporary contact in the first term of 2022 (75% of the teaching staff were expatriates at the time). This was because the school was not able to recruit a permanent local teacher of Geography; but is Geography so difficult to teach as compared to science subjects? Surely, many of our unemployed local teachers include many who are quite able to teach this subject? But alas, no local teacher applied for the post. Later the school decided to extend my contract to the end of the year, and in August they advertised the position of Geography teacher again. But there were only three applicants, all of them Zimbabweans. They then appointed one of these candidates to teach Geography from the beginning of 2023. Crescent has also produced many people who have contributed to Botswana’s development. One ex-pupil, Rehana Khan, discovered a new species of mosquito in northern Botswana, Anopheles seretsei. 

Many local teachers may not wish to teach in private schools. They may cite many reasons for this; two of them being that working in public schools means more job security and a pension when they retire. So, the message is clear – we can learn much from private schools about upgrading and improving our public schools so that they become more conducive to teaching and learning. And it’s a no-win situation for everyone if we do not! Foreign expertise should be allowed to contribute to our education system! 

For the above reasons, private school pupils usually excel in examinations. 

Grahame McLeod