Meaningful and emancipatory education which empowers citizens as
democrats is the ideal education which can propel the socio-economic and political
fibre of nay nation-state. After independence, Botswana aligned her education system
with the envisioned development process. The sad thing about this ambitious
approach in Botswana is that it sought to produce citizens who would pragmatically
be engaged in the development of a democratic nation-state yet the pedagogically
approaches to education were at variance with pragmatic and empowering democratic
education. The ultimate result became mass production of the educated or
degreed citizens who could not penetrate the job market. Bookish and examinationoriented
education which is far divorced from vocation and the realities of the job
market ultimately results in the perpetuation of frustrated educated citizens who
roam the streets as victims of the diploma disease. Botswana is traumatized by
the diploma disease as evidenced by escalating figures of unemployed graduates.
As such, this paper argues that Botswana’s education system should focus on the
ideals of pragmatic democratic education by embracing and advancing Business
Education which will empower citizens to develop vocational skills which they can
utilize to create jobs for themselves, thus countering the current traumatic scourge
of the diploma disease.