Briefing Paper

Botswana’s Dilemma in Financing Tertiary Education

Botswana like many countries around the
world has pinned its hopes on using tertiary education and training as one of the critical vehicles of transforming its economy and society. Accordingly, since independence in 1966, Botswana has invested heavily on educating its citizens at tertiary education and training
level. Spending an average of 4.5% of its
Gross Domestic Product annually, the country is among the world’s leading spenders on education. The current system of financing tertiary education is found to be both inefficient and unsustainable. Therefore, a new initiative on reforming the tertiary education funding policy has been initiated and it is intended to
inculcate a strong culture of efficiency and accountability in the institutions as well as to come up with alternative financing strategies that involve parents, learners and the private sector. The rest of this brief elaborates on some of these alternative strategies.