After decades of sending its top talent abroad, Botswana invests capital and effort in engineering education

摘要

GABORONE, Botswana - When Joseph Chuma was born in 1966, the new Republic of Botswana had just one public secondary school in a nation the size of Texas, and not a single university. Even by the time he graduated from high school, there were no courses that would allow him to pursue his engineering dreams. So the government paid young Chuma's way to Britain, the nation's former colonial ruler, until he finally emerged with one of the first two engineering doctorates ever awarded to a Botswana citizen. When he returned to Gaborone as a lecturer at the University of Botswana in 2001, the fledgling school of Engineering was dominated by British land other expatriate faculty members. In engineering education, at least, Botswana still was not ready to declare independence.