Book Description

This book uses the global–local dialect approach to explicate education policy reform in Botswana and interrogates the practical effects of the various education policies on curriculum, pedagogy and governance of the Botswana General Education system. Considering the effect of three reform policies since Botswana’s Independence in 1966, the book evaluates the performance of each of the policies and examines their consequences in terms of the interplay of global forces and domestic pressures. The result of this interplay has been an education landscape that, while reflecting globally circulating education discourses, markedly differs from those same discourses. The book argues that the State in Botswana has appropriated education policy to legitimate itself in times of crisis and that each policy has improved access to general education but, collectively, have failed to improve its quality, making suggestions for how this can be improved in the future. As the first book of its kind to delve into education in Botswana from a single-authored critical lens, the book will be a highly relevant reading for academics, researchers and post-graduate students of African education, comparative education, education policy and curriculum studies.