The Emergence and Teaching of the Social Studies Programme in Botswana

The emergence of the Social Studies Programme in Botswana can be traced to the international Social Studies conference attended by African, United States and British representatives which took place in Oxford, Britain in 1967. This conference called for the need to align curriculum development to the needs and priorities of Africans (EDC/CREDO, 1968). Preceding this conference was the Massachusetts Conference held in the United States of American 1961 where problems facing education systems in emerging nation-states in Africa were discussed (Adeyemi, 2010). Within this trajectory of events, the African Social Studies Programme (ASSP) was born (Merryfeild, 1988). This was indeed a good initiative. Social Studies scholars across the world working in conjunction with governments of the seventeen countries embraced the ASSP. These countries included Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leon, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia (Merryfield, 1988).

            Later on the ASSP came to include the Environmental Education component hence African Social Studies and Environmental Program (ASSEP) (Adeyemi, 2008). The Environmental Education (EE) component was added because of the global pressures on the environment due to climatic changes and activities like deforestation. Thus EE was critical for the conservation and preservation of fauna and flora in Africa (Cheruto & Peter, 2013). In fact, as the United Nations Environmental Education Programme (UNEP) (1994) states the “introduction critical thinking and problem solving skills in EE especially at primary schools, is fundamental if students are to become skillful in the identification and solution of environmental problems as students…” (p. 4).

            The ASSP inherited instructional pedagogies that were for practical purposes didactic, passive and fused with disregard for innovation and creativity in the learning of Social Studies (Educational Development Center & Curriculum Renewal & Educational Development Overseas, 1968; p. 6). For example, Social Studies teaching was overly based on textbook assignments, oral review of assignments in class, extensive teacher talk, recitation, and seatwork with some odd field tours and use of audio-visual materials (Bolinger & Warren, 2007; p. 70). These are practices that resonate with indoctrination of Social Studies learners and in the process negating the pursuit for citizenship education (Ajiboye, 2009).

            The ASSP advocated and recommended the use of inquiry to teach Social Studies. The intention was to afford students the opportunity to ask questions and solve problems independently (Merryfield, 1988). These child-centered pedagogies were later inscribed into the Botswana school curriculum to improve the quality of education (RNPE, 1994). Unfortunately for Botswana and other African countries, this pedagogical shift was and is still hard to achieve due to a number factors such as the culture of teaching and availability of resources (Mhlauli & Muchado, 2013).

            The inclusion of social issues was necessitated by calls for interdisciplinary studies and global education within Social Studies in tandem with high level thinking as well as inquiry based learning approaches (Bolinger & Warren, 2007; p. 69).

Put simply Social Studies was to be taught through the use of child-centered pedagogies. However, as Benette and Hinde (2004) rightly observed, this was not easy and required a lot of planning and sound pedagogical knowledge. The need for effective instructional strategies was summed up by Adeyemi (2010) when he observed that:

the resolution of the Mombasa Conference to employ the learner-centered approach in teaching and learning Social Studies was to make students active rather than passive in the learning process, a situation that would enhance democratic practices at classroom level (p.13-14).

                   

In principle, leaner-centered approaches and teaching pedagogies are dialectically opposed to indoctrination. However, the reality is that teachers’ pedagogical practices in Botswana schools are didactic. According to Tabulawa (2013) the sub Saharan African region has been experimenting with leaner-centered pedagogies without any success. More specifically, Botswana has over the past four decades theoretically embraced learner-centered pedagogies yet teaching still remains didactic and authoritarian.