12 Feb 2023

MP for Maun West, Mr Dumelang Saleshando has emphasised the need for government to invest in early childhood education in its efforts to realise a knowledge-based economy.

Contributing to the debate on the budget speech on Thursday, Mr Saleshando argued that transformation to a knowledge-based economy would remain a pipe dream if government failed to find the importance of investing in human resource development at grassroots level through promotion of early childhood education.

He said investing in early childhood education would be significant in social and economic development of the society given that the programme provided developmental support and care for children in their formative years to acquire the skills necessary for future learning and success at school.

“The country’s education system has been declining over the years owing to the inability to invest in pre-school education despite the Ministry Education and Skills Development’s allocation of a lion’s share even in the previous budgets,” he said.

The MP also expressed concern about the pre-school enrollment, which he said was currently at 17 per cent as well as a 64.5 per cent decline in funds allocation to pre-school education last year.

Furthermore, Mr Saleshando said a lot still needed to be done given that schools continued to experience low learner enrollment.

That, he said was despite the increase from 590 to 613 in the number of schools offering the one-year reception class programme since the implementation of the programme until March 2020.

“It should be of government’s interest to ensure that Batswana are funded to operate private pre-schools.

Government should also be mandated to invest in children’s pre-primary education,” he said.

Mr Saleshando indicated Botswana’s human capital index had over the years also been hovering around a 40 per cent rate, something he said demonstrated less progress in improving the country’s human capital.

Furthermore, he said while he was cognisant of Botswana’s registration of high economic growth rate, the situation was nonetheless not a true reflection of the livelihoods for many people since the cost of living and the price of basic commodities had risen beyond affordability.

“Inflation has risen from 3.2 per cent in 2018 to a record 12.4 per cent in 2022, a reflection that many Batswana are now struggling to sustain their livelihoods,” he added.

He added that Botswana had also dropped in the human development barometer index from 0.716 to 0.693, something he said was evidence of the hardships that many Batswana were faced with.

As a result, Mr Saleshando dismissed the budget speech as unappealing, having failed to restore hope among those who lived below the poverty datum line.

He said it was on that regard that the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) 2009 manifesto, titled; A Aation at Cross Roads, Which Way Now, Prosperity or Economic Collapse, could be a point of reference in alleviating Batswana from poverty.

“As the BCP we have always run with the slogan; Bring Back our Jobs; as a way of illustrating the disadvantaged of exporting the country’s minerals in their raw form since that quantified to exporting jobs,” he added.

He further argued that it did not make economic sense for Botswana to still be exporting diamonds and copper in their raw form while unemployment rate remained high locally. ENDS