ABSTRACT

REFORM OR RE-FORM? A TRADE UNION PERSPECTIVE OF THE RECENT SHIFT IN BOTSWANA’S HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY

The background to Botswana’s Higher Education system, characterised by a plethora of diverse, highly unequal training institutions, scattered under inefficiently managed multiple governance systems and the failure of the system to respond to contemporary labour market challenges, have all converged to give an impetus to a major and urgent policy shift consisting of a system-wide remaking and repositioning. The first hurdle to cross for a reconstructed system would be to reconstitute higher education in a more inclusive definition that recognises different modes of learning and achieves system integration in the context of Botswana’s development challenges without compromising desired system standards. While system coordination would grapple with the formative issues of institutional autonomy, approaches to funding and quality assurance, neo-liberal globalisation also poses the opportunities for private investment in Higher Education, which bring along its attending baggage of commoditisation of HE which challenges the very ideals of a functional HE system in a developing country. This paper looks at the challenges for policy shift and offers alternative ideas from a social point of view, taking a traditional trade union approach.