Opportunities and challenges of widening access to education: Adult education in botswana

Abstract

It is tempting to think that there could be one right way to conceptualize the issue of widening access to education. However, access is complex and multifaceted, and if not understood as such, some injustices may arise when addressing this phenomenon. The debate on widening access to education turns on nothing less than equality, inclusion, and, most of all, fair distribution of and accessibility to educational resources and facilities. It calls for more supportive and welcoming educational systems that aim to impart critical skills for citizenship-that is, to produce beneficiaries who have the professional competences and attitudes that enable them to be resourceful and productive, first, locally, and then globally. At first glance, the policies on widening access to education in Botswana appear fair and realistic. After all, no one would like to be subjected to inequalities, injustices, and unfairness. Yet on closer examination there are critical challenges that may turn the dream of achieving open access into a "painful" reality. In Botswana, as in many African nations, inequalities and differences feature in the social fabric. First, students come from diverse economic and cultural backgrounds. Furthermore, the grossly uneven management and distribution of resources between income groups from the rural and urban populations of the nation, the unequally resourced districts and town councils, and the disproportionate ratios of students in rural and urban schools suggest some tension with regard to widening access to education. These realities pose complex challenges to widening access. To be effective and make a real difference, the issue of widening access should be framed in social, economic, political, and legal goals. The means by which such goals are to be achieved remain a complex challenge, however. Thus, in this chapter we discuss the challenges facing Botswana, first, by providing educational profiles that will form a basis for discussing widening access to education. Secondly, we discuss policies that have been developed locally to encourage widening access together with some that enforce international conventions that Botswana has ratified-such as Education for All (EFA), the Sixth Dakar Framework of Action Goals, the Millennium Goals, and the Hamburg Declaration and the Agenda for the Future-so as to demonstrate the central role of these policies in the charting of a way forward for widening access, especially in the area of adult education. We then consider successes and failures in widening access. And we conclude by exploring ways of articulating new challenges for widening access within the wider sociopolitical, policy, and curricula-implementation contexts. © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.