Governing education ‘problems’ in Botswana: what’s the problem represented to be in the education & training sector Strategic Plan (2015–2020)

This paper draws from Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be’ (WPR), to examine how the Education and Training Sector Strategic Plan (2015–2020) represents education ‘problems’ in Botswana. Although there are widely held views that education problems exist in Botswana, there is lack of empirical and theory-driven studies that critically examine how such problems are represented as policy issues. It is largely unclear how some issues come to be represented as education ‘problems’, the politics of their formation, and the effects of such problematizations. Through WPR analysis, the study reveals two (2) problematizations; the mismatch between tertiary qualifications and labor market needs, and access to, and quality of education. This is what is assumed to be the problems of education in Botswana. The WPR analysis disentangles how these problems are represented as problems, the politics of their formation, their silences and the material effects they have on the education sector in Botswana. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the WPR analysis and emphasize the need to unmake and re-think the existing education problem representations to allow for alternative conceptualizations.