Introduction
Article # 28 of the universal Declaration of Human Rights Charter explicitly states that education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages of every child www.un.org. Therefore countries are by law bound to provide education to their citizens and even foreigners on conditions set out by their sovereign constitutions. Large sums of money are pumped into education to meet the targets of conventions which countries are signatory to, in line with universal education for all. Education for all is not the same thing as quality education for all (World Education Forum, 2000). The implication that can be drawn from the afore stated words is that, although countries are in pursuit of Education for All goals, they experience problems like low quality of teachers and high teacher pupil ratio which impede upon the quality and standards of their education systems especially at the level of primary, junior and secondary schools.
It is thus the intent of this essay to focus specifically on the public concern about the declining quality of Primary School Leaving Examinations in Botswana with distinctive attention on the use of John Dewey’s philosophical trends to transform and improve the quality and standard of our education. This will be done in a pragmatic manner as maybe espoused by the head of department responsible for quality and standards in the ministry of education. Although the transformative philosophical approach discussed herein, focuses on primary education for purposes of avoiding generosity, it would also be applicable at secondary levels.
State of the results over the years
Primary School Leaving Examinations:
Year 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007
% Pass 65% 64% 69.4% 68.2% 69.8% 72.9%
Adopted from: allafrica.com
From the above tabulation it is evident that the Botswana examinations results are on the decline as far back as