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By the year 2016, Botswana will have a system of quality education that is able to adapt to the changing needs of the country as the world around us changes. Improvements in the relevance, the quality, and the access to education lie at the core of the Vision for the future. The education system will empower citizens to become the best producers of goods and services. It will produce entrepreneurs who will create employment through the establishment of new enterprises. Public education will be used to raise awareness of life skills, such as self health care.

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Botswana has achieved universal access to primary education, which provides a strong basis for the higher goal of 10 years of basic education. From 1995-2000, the estimated net enrolment rate (NER) for children aged 7-13 was consistently above 95%, peaking at 100% in 1999 and 2000. Over the same period, the gross enrolment ratio (GER) was at least 11 percentage points higher than the NER, in part because some pupils start school late but also because some dropouts do return to school.

In addition to improved access to education, progression from one level of study to another has also improved. In 2002, 98.2% of all Standard 7 pupils progressed to junior secondary. Based on these trends, Botswana will make significant gains in literacy by 2016. The foundation for a fully literate society has been laid.

As a result of growing unemployment amongst people with tertiary qualifications, concern has been raised about whether Botswana’s education adequately prepares young people for life after school. The counter question to this is whether the school system should in fact seek to prepare pupils for the job market. Vision 2016 suggests so.

 “Education has not been adequately geared to the needs of the country, and the job market. The challenge is to place greater emphasis on technical and practical subjects – the skills that are most needed.”

Trends in unemployment do not, however, provide an adequate basis for assessing the quality of education. Unemployment is not necessarily a result of deficiencies in education and training. It is also fundamentally about the existence of employment opportunities. In the absence of more accurate measures of educational outcomes, proxies such as preschool enrolment, the teacher-pupil ratio, classroom accommodation, classroom equipment, and ICT resources may be used.

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All pre-school education in Botswana is provided by civil society organizations, including the private sector. However, the Government provides substantial support in the form of policy direction, teaching materials, teacher training and grants to NGOs and CBOs involved in preschool education.

Even so, preschool training is inaccessible to children from poor families and rural areas. About 90% of eligible children do not access preschool education, either because preschool facilities do not exist where they live, or because their parents cannot afford the fees, or choose not to enroll their children for preschool.

The significance of the pupil teacher ratio is that the lower it is the greater the amount of time the teacher spends with each pupil and the greater the quality of instruction. The average pupil-teacher ratio in Botswana’s public schools was estimated at 27 in 2002, well below the NDP 9 target of 30 pupils per class. It still compares poorly with the 16 observed in private schools but represents real progress from 45 in 1994.

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Classroom accommodation is central to learning. It reduces the impact of the external environment - weather and events in the community - on learning, and facilitates the organisation and effective use of learning tools such as chalkboards, teaching aids and furniture. Through aggressive construction of new schools and additional classrooms in existing ones, Botswana has reduced its classroom shortage from 2021 in 1994 to only 187 classes in 2003. The shortage of classrooms has a regional dimension however. For instance, Ngamiland North and Ngamiland South respectively had classroom shortages of 37.8% and 29.5% in 2003.