Pragmatizing Democratic Education in Botswana through Business Education: Countering the Scourge of the Diploma Disease

Overview & Synopsis

Meaningful and emancipatory education which empowers citizens as democrats is the ideal education which can propel the socio-economic and political fibre of nay nation-state. After independence, Botswana aligned her education system with the envisioned development process. The sad thing about this ambitious approach in Botswana is that it sought to produce citizens who would pragmatically be engaged in the development of a democratic nation-state yet the pedagogically approaches to education were at variance with pragmatic and empowering democratic education. The ultimate result became mass production of the educated or degreed citizens who could not penetrate the job market. Bookish and examination-oriented education which is far divorced from vocation and the realities of the job market ultimately results in the perpetuation of frustrated educated citizens who roam the streets as victims of the diploma disease. Botswana is traumatized by the diploma disease as evidenced by escalating figures of unemployed graduates. As such, this paper argues that Botswana's education system should focus on the ideals of pragmatic democratic education by embracing and advancing Business Education which will empower citizens to develop vocational skills which they can utilize to create jobs for themselves, thus countering the current traumatic scourge of the diploma disease.