{"id":22082,"date":"2023-02-14T14:36:50","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T14:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/invest-in-early-childhood-education-saleshando"},"modified":"2023-02-14T15:01:30","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T15:01:30","slug":"invest-in-early-childhood-education-saleshando","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/invest-in-early-childhood-education-saleshando","title":{"rendered":"INVEST IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION &#8211; SALESHANDO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. <\/strong><\/span><b>MP for Maun West, Mr Dumelang Saleshando has emphasised the need for government to invest in early childhood education in its efforts to realise a knowledge-based economy.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Contributing to the debate on the budget speech on Thursday, Mr Saleshando argued that transformation to a knowledge-based economy would remain a pipe dream if government failed to find the importance of investing in human resource development at grassroots level through promotion of early childhood education.<\/p>\n<p>He said investing in early childhood education would be significant in social and economic development of the society given that the programme provided developmental support and care for children in their formative years to acquire the skills necessary for future learning and success at school.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe country\u2019s education system has been declining over the years owing to the inability to invest in pre-school education despite the Ministry Education and Skills Development\u2019s allocation of a lion\u2019s share even in the previous budgets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The MP also expressed concern about the pre-school enrollment, which he said was currently at 17 per cent as well as a 64.5 per cent decline in funds allocation to pre-school education last year.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, Mr Saleshando said a lot still needed to be done given that schools continued to experience low learner enrollment.<\/p>\n<p>That, he said was despite the increase from 590 to 613 in the number of schools offering the one-year reception class programme since the implementation of the programme until March 2020.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt should be of government\u2019s interest to ensure that Batswana are funded to operate private pre-schools.<\/p>\n<p>Government should also be mandated to invest in children\u2019s pre-primary education,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Saleshando indicated Botswana\u2019s human capital index had over the years also been hovering around a 40 per cent rate, something he said demonstrated less progress in improving the country\u2019s human capital.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, he said while he was cognisant of Botswana\u2019s registration of high economic growth rate, the situation was nonetheless not a true reflection of the livelihoods for many people since the cost of living and the price of basic commodities had risen beyond affordability.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInflation has risen from 3.2 per cent in 2018 to a record 12.4 per cent in 2022, a reflection that many Batswana are now struggling to sustain their livelihoods,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>He added that Botswana had also dropped in the human development barometer index from 0.716 to 0.693, something he said was evidence of the hardships that many Batswana were faced with.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, Mr Saleshando dismissed the budget speech as unappealing, having failed to restore hope among those who lived below the poverty datum line.<\/p>\n<p>He said it was on that regard that the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) 2009 manifesto, titled; A Aation at Cross Roads, Which Way Now, Prosperity or Economic Collapse, could be a point of reference in alleviating Batswana from poverty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs the BCP we have always run with the slogan; Bring Back our Jobs; as a way of illustrating the disadvantaged of exporting the country\u2019s minerals in their raw form since that quantified to exporting jobs,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>He further argued that it did not make economic sense for Botswana to still be exporting diamonds and copper in their raw form while unemployment rate remained high locally.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\">Botswana<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. MP for Maun West, Mr Dumelang Saleshando has emphasised the need for government to invest in early childhood education in its efforts to realise a knowledge-based economy. Contributing to the debate on the budget speech on Thursday, Mr Saleshando argued that transformation to a knowledge-based economy would remain a pipe dream if [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":22081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[233,237,234],"class_list":["post-22082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-botswana","tag-botswana"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>INVEST IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION - SALESHANDO - Botswana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"MP for Maun West, Mr Dumelang Saleshando has emphasised the need for government to invest in early childhood educatio ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/invest-in-early-childhood-education-saleshando\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"INVEST IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION - SALESHANDO\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"MP for Maun West, Mr Dumelang Saleshando has emphasised the need for government to invest in early childhood educatio ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/invest-in-early-childhood-education-saleshando\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-02-14T14:36:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-02-14T15:01:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/postQueueImg_1676373359.16.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1719\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1145\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/invest-in-early-childhood-education-saleshando#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/invest-in-early-childhood-education-saleshando\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"INVEST IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION &#8211; 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