The Minister of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology, Douglas Letsholathebe, has made a drastic u-turn to a controversial statement he made in parliament calling on government to introduce indigenous knowledge and witchcraft (boloi) in the school curriculum.
The minister said, “Ha go tla ko dikolong, yes, curriculum ya rona mo dikolong tsa rona re lebeletse gore gone moo, gore re e hetole e kgone go tsenya dikgang tsa indigenous knowledge go yeng ko pele. Re bona ko mahatseng a mangwe, ko bo South Africa, le kgang tsa boloi ba setse ba simolotse gore ba bone gore ba ka di tsenya mo curriculum ya bone, why not do the same?”
“We should look into changing our curriculum to introdue teaching witchcraft in school, indigenous knowledge is being adopted by other countries like south Africa, why don’t we do the same?”
His statement sparked debate both in parliament and in the streets. Retracting his statement, the Tati East Member of Parliament apologised on Wednesday.
“I had a sleepless night over the issue. I was getting all sorts of messages over the matter and I was simply taken out of context and I wish to clarify the issue and take it back,” Letsholathebe.
At pains to explain his statement, Letsholathebe said he meant to say that there are certain elements of convectional knowledge that have proved to work in the past and that, if properly documented and patented, could be used to improve the lives of Batswana.
