The challenges for teachers in the teaching of topics associated with Botswana's "Vision 2016"

Abstract

The world is a diverse ecosystem where humans and the environment must interact and live in harmony. In order to keep any society going, either at the national or global level, the importance of having visions for the improvement of that society cannot be overemphasized. It is in the light of this dream of making Botswana an enviable nation that the "Vision 2016" was published in 1997. A pillar of the "Vision" focuses on the development of a moral and tolerant nation. This article presents a brief literature review that focuses on the "moral and tolerant" aspects as aspirations of a nation. These two concepts are values which have implications for classroom pedagogy. This article reports an investigation of 64 teachers at the junior secondary school level and the challenges faced by them when teaching topics related to these values with their attendant remedies. The identified challenges included the difficulty of the use of critical and ethical reasoning methods in classes, a lack of community support, inadequate teachers' qualifications and experience, needed teaching resources, and the heterogeneity of the students, among others. The teachers provide some remedies to these challenges, while the investigator advocates for further research on the appropriate methods for teaching values in schools.