Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics - IEA

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TEACHER PAY AND STUDENT MATHEMATICS ACHIEVEMENT
Botswana 8
Composition of the teacher labor force
In the early 2000s, Botswana had almost 13,000 primary school teachers (Figure 6) for
about 330,000 primary school students, or a student–teacher ratio of 26:1. The number
of primary teachers and the number of primary students barely changed from 1998
on. Primary teaching is largely a female profession; approximately 80% of the teaching
workforce is female. Close to 95% of teachers are Batswana, but the proportion of non-
Batswana has risen slowly, from four percent in 1995 to six percent in 2004. Although
the proportion of “untrained” primary school teachers in Botswana fluctuates from
year to year, the percentage in the early 2000s hovered around 10%.
The number of secondary school teachers doubled in the 10 years following 1995
(Figure 6). The number of secondary school students increased by 50% in the same
period, from 103,000 to almost 159,000. Thus, the student–teacher ratio declined
substantially in secondary education, from more than 20:1 to 15:1. Another major
change that occurred in the 10 years following 1995 was the proportion of teachers
identifying as Batswana or non-Batswana: in 1995, more than 30% of secondary school
were non-Batswana; by 2004, the proportion had dropped to 14%, suggesting that the
main expansion of secondary education occurs in government and government-aided
schools where the teaching force is primarily Batswana. Most of the expansion took
place in grant-aided schools rather than in schools run directly by the government.
Untrained teachers declined as a percentage of all secondary school teachers, from 15%
in 1995 to 6% in 2004.
Figure 6: Botswana, Number of Primary and Secondary Teachers, 1995 to 2004
14,000
12,000
Number of Teachers
10,000
8,000
6,000
4,000
2,000
0
1995
1996 1997 1998
Primary Total
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Year
Secondary Total
Source: Central Statistics Bureau, Botswana.
8 Unless otherwise specified, data for Botswana were drawn from these websites:
http://www.moe.gov.bw/tsm/about/structure.html;
http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/show.php?id=5&theme=rights&country=botswana;
http://www.moe.gov.bw/information/index.html.