COLLAPSING UNDER THE WEIGHT OF BUREAUCRATIC RED TAPE: THE CHALLENGES OF COMBATING THE CRISIS OF LOW STUDENT NUMBERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BOTSWANA?

Abstract

As the second decade of the new millennium wore on the University of Botswana (UB) embarked on a massive drive reviewing its programmes to introduce new or streamlined course offerings and teaching strategies in line with government policy for the higher education sector, and new needs in the job market. This paper argues that departments adversely affected by decline in student numbers responded fairly well by proposing attractive new courses relevant to the job market. Unfortunately, UB’s customary slow, rigid and convoluted bureaucratic processes and procedures stalled progress sometimes leading to new government policy and new UB bureaucratic demands overtaking little progress made, and leading to demoralizing return to the drawing board for initiators of courses and programmes. We use experience of developments in the Department of History over the past few years to demonstrate how the above scenario and a bureaucratic one-size-fits-all approach make success of the process almost an exercise in futility.