11 Apr 2016

Botswana University of Science and Technology (BUIST) has launched an inquiry based science education pilot study with Serorome Primary School in Palapye. 

The director of pre-university and academic programme, Dr Haniso Motlhabane, said the project would run for two years with emphasis on standard six pupils. 

Dr Haniso said BIUST sought to strengthen mathematics and science student supply from primary education to tertiary education. He said if all the students from primary schools were to reach tertiary schools without dropping out and pursue science and mathematics related subjects, the country would have good supply of technicians and engineers.  

 He said the number of students dropping from science and mathematics from secondary schools to university was bad because science and technology were keys to drive the growth of the economy. 

He said all countries that were advanced in technological development have used science and mathematics because technology is all about mathematics and science.

He said science and mathematics are important and all people need them. 

He said the challenge faced by Botswana is that the number of students who pass through Botswana’s education system, particularly in science and mathematics in local schools plummet as they go to the highest level of education. 

He said the perception many people have was that science and mathematics become difficult in upper classes, adding that only if students could put their minds on science and mathematics, they would be able to do it.  He said they are launching the IBSC project to prove that it is possible to be successful in mathematics and science.

He said the government has appreciated that Botswana must shift from resource based economy to a knowledge based economy in order to develop because unlike resources that can easily get depleted, the knowledge development is never limited. 

Ms Leapotswe Bantsi, the outreach programmes coordinator said as Botswana reaches the year 2016 of which one of its pillars is a Prosperous, Productive, and Innovative Nation, Botswana has come up with institutions that will encourage the use of technology in the country and some of these institutions are BIUST, Botswana Innovation Hub, and others. 

She said Botswana has a very limited human resource base to exercise and put in place technological knowledge and invent new technology. She said this might be due to lack of  research that could support invention and innovation. 

She said to correct that kind of problem, the IBSE was introduced to Serorome primary school. She said IBSE will be useful to students since it encourages and involves scientific processes and will help students to ask questions, make predictions, make observations, collect and store data, make conclusions and many more.

Ms Bantsi said through IBSE, students will not wait for teachers to learn, but will do researches on their own and seek advice from teachers. She said also that the idea behind the IBSE pilot project is to make students do practical tasks and use their minds when learning to enable them  understand easily. 

She said it is important for a teacher to engage students by asking them questions in order to make learning challenging and interesting.   Ends