Pathways toward Peace: Negotiating National Unity and Ethnic Diversity through Education in Botswana

“There is still peace. There are no wars.”: Prioritizing unity over diversity in Botswana’s social studies policies and practices and the implications for positive peace

“…These measures of inequality and positive peace in Botswana reflect other research that documents unequal access to power and opportunity in Botswana (Cook & Sarkin, 2010;Dryden-Peterson & Mulimbi, 2017;Gapa, 2017;Gulbrandsen, 2012;Nyati-Ramahobo, 2006c;Pansiri, 2012;Scanlon, 2002).…”

“…Policy-makers and minority rights advocates use widely varying population estimates of ethnic groups to represent Botswana as either ethnically homogenous or ethnically diverse, with claims ranging from 18 percent Tswana (Nyati-Ramahobo, 2006b;Nyati-Saleshando, 2011) to nationally representative data that includes self-reports of respondents' ethnicity. In the three years that include data on ethnicity (2005,2008,2012), just over half of respondents identify as Tswana, and slightly under half identify as one of 21 other ethnic groups (Dryden-Peterson & Mulimbi, 2017).…”

“…For example, at Independence, only 20 percent of children were enrolled in primary school, yet by 1996, 96 percent of school-age children were enrolled in school with ten years of fee-free education (Dryden-Peterson & Mulimbi, 2017). Botswana also had the first national HIV treatment program in Africa, and 87 percent of HIV-infected individuals are enrolled in antiretroviral therapy (ART), a greater proportion of people receiving effective therapy than even the best performing high income countries (Gaolathe et al, 2016).…”

Responses to cultural diversity in Botswana’s schools: links between national policy, school actions and students’ civic equality

“…Recognizing the potential for interethnic conflict, as experienced by many neighboring Southern African countries, Botswana's leaders have taken a consistent approach to mitigating this risk by equalizing access to resources such as education and embracing civic national principles -unity, self-reliance, democracy, development, and botho 2 -that hold appeal across ethnic groups (Dryden-Peterson & Mulimbi, 2017;Gulbrandsen, 2012). Yet Botswana's nation-building effort has been widely and increasingly criticized for its failure to recognize the many ethnic minorities within its borders, choosing instead to privilege the culture and language of the dominant Tswana ethnic groups (Gapa, 2017;Nyati-Ramahobo, 2006a;Tabulawa, 2009;Werbner, 2002).…”

“…Yet in its content, the current school curriculum promotes unity by emphasizing equality of citizens' rights and access to services while providing only limited recognition of uncontroversial aspects of multiculturalism, such as dress, music, and foods. It does not address more contentious aspects of multiculturalism that minority advocacy groups have brought to the media, courts, and political forums, such as divergent historical understandings, economic and political inequalities between ethnic groups, or language rights (Dryden-Peterson & Mulimbi, 2017). In school curriculum, these more contentious aspects of minority culture and experiences are unrecognized and treated as private matters to be tolerated.…”