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THE ROLE OF SPIRANTISATION IN EXPLAINING PHONOLOGICAL MICRO-VARIATION IN CISUKWA, CINDALI AND CILAMBYA
Get PDFThe paper discusses phonological micro-variation in Cisukwa, Cindali and Cilambya and how it can be accounted for by the diachronic process of spirantisation. The paper demonstrates that variation exists in SuNdaLa’s consonant inventories, their sound correspondences and phonotactic constraints. It shows that spirantisation accounts for the occurrence of fricatives in the SuNdaLa varieties but argues that the variation that exists among them is due to the varieties being at different stages of Hinnebusch’s (1981) spirantisation process. Cilambya is still at stage one of the process while Cindali and Cisukwa are at stage two. It is also argued that the devoicing of other obstruents in Cisukwa and Cindali may have occurred together with spirant devoicing. Issues of language contact are also discussed as they may be able to account for the reason why Cilambya diverges from the other two varieties
Comparative Religious Accommodation Jurisprudence: Lessons For Botswana
Get PDFThis discussion reviews the religious jurisprudence of a few English speaking countries in which the constitutional systems are comparable with that of Botswana and in which the jurisprudence quite often influences the decisions of the courts of Botswana. The comparative analysis focuses on how the courts ruled and reasoned when approached by religious and/cultural minorities seeking accommodation of their dress and other practices which were deemed inconsistent with a school’s uniform code. Lessons are drawn and recommendations are made on how the courts of Botswana should proceed when similar issues reach them for their determination. An argument is made that the courts of Botswana must follow the positive accommodative nature of some of the judgments reviewed herein and reject whatever oppresses minority rights in a liberal democracy
HIGH PRIORITY FACTORS FOR A POSSIBLE ACCREDITATION MODEL FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION IN BOTSWANA
Get PDFThis study sought to investigate on high priority factors that would need to be incorporated in a possible accreditation model for Botswana. The research collected data from participants through interviews and questionnaires. Three factors were identified as critical: safety devises, Mission and Vision and a strong Parents Teachers Association. These factors were also ranked according to priority as listed above, and should the clientele and the Botswana Qualifications Authority see a need to formulate an accreditation model to be used as an assessment tool in ECE in Botswana, these factors would need to be taken into consideration. The Botswana Qualifications Authority would further need to apply compliance checks that may be numeric in its assessment procedures
THE NUTS-AND-BOLTS OF CHILD CARE AND SOCIALIZATION: A RESOURCE FOR PARENTS AND CHILD MINDERS
Get PDFWhereas traditionally, child care and socialization in Botswana was the responsibility of the nuclear family, the extended family kin network, and the community at large, such structures have gradually diminished in size. The philosophy and art of child care and socialization used to be passed from older generations to younger one, usually by way of oral tradition and apprenticeship. However, the present economic activities do not allow time and human resources for the oral transmission of the philosophy and art of child care and socialization across generations. Unfortunately, this happens at a time when there are many challenges in the environment that dictate that guidance on child care receives even more attention than it did a few decades ago. It is therefore necessary that child care and socialization be formally guided. This paper presents what taking care of and socializing children in a manner that enriches rather than compromises their development, maturity and successful integration into the society entails.
The paper is informed by the authors’ personal experience of growing up in a Setswana tradition as well as by conceptual and empirical work on child care and development. The paper focuses on three broad areas of a) family environment, b) the community within which the family exists, and c) the child as an individual. The author carefully selects what is considered to be good practices in child care, arguing that the family, the community, and the child him/herself play a key role in successful child socialization and care
A barren mistress: American rhetoric in the Rhodesian illegal declaration of independence
Get PDFThis month marks the fortieth anniversary of the Lancaster House Agreement on 21 December 1979 which officially ended the Rhodesian Bush War and led directly to the creation of the Republic of Zimbabwe five months later. One immediate effect of the signing of this agreement was the nullification of the illegal Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) that on 11 November 1965 had declared Rhodesia free from British colonial control. This was only the second UDI in history - the first being the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 – and superficially the context of the two declarations appear similar, a circumstance that motivated the authors of the Rhodesian UDI to model their Proclamation on Thomas Jefferson’s illustrious American original in an attempt to generate international sympathy for their cause. However, the extent of the relationship between the two documents, their linguistic modelling, rhetorical effects and political philosophies, remains largely unexplored. This paper dissects the rhetoric of the Rhodesian UDI in the light of the lexis, structure, syntax, physical context and ideology of its American predecessor. What is apparent is that the American model provides only a thin veneer of respectability, with the suppressed dissimilarities between the two documents revealing the repugnance of a racist Weltanschauung that underpins the Rhodesian government’s claims for independence. This is ultimately contextualised by a chronologically mediating text, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s bestselling C19th novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which addresses the central issue of the responsibility of a white Western government towards its black African citizenry
The Convergence of Sexual Harassment Workplace Claims and Evolving Vicarious Liability Jurisprudence
Get PDFThe recent judgment of Pickering J in PE v Ikwezi Municipality has brought to the fore the inherent difficulties of adjudicating the issues of sexual harassment at the workplace on the one hand, and the imposition of liability on the employer arising from the conduct of one of its employees on the other. The law of sexual harassment, which offered little or no protection to the victim of such act at the workplace, has been rejuvenated by the values of human dignity, equality and freedom entrenched in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and judicially incorporated into the employer’s vicarious liability. This article explores the convergence of the protection offered the victim by the law of sexual harassment and the extended protection offered by the modern law of vicarious liability using the recent Ikwezi Municipality case as a focus pointThe recent judgment of Pickering J in PE v Ikwezi Municipality has brought to the fore the inherent difficulties of adjudicating the issues of sexual harassment at the workplace on the one hand, and the imposition of liability on the employer arising from the conduct of one of its employees on the other. The law of sexual harassment, which offered little or no protection to the victim of such act at the workplace, has been rejuvenated by the values of human dignity, equality and freedom entrenched in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and judicially incorporated into the employer’s vicarious liability. This article explores the convergence of the protection offered the victim by the law of sexual harassment and the extended protection offered by the modern law of vicarious liability using the recent Ikwezi Municipality case as a focus pointThe recent judgment of Pickering J in PE v Ikwezi Municipality has brought to the fore the inherent difficulties of adjudicating the issues of sexual harassment at the workplace on the one hand, and the imposition of liability on the employer arising from the conduct of one of its employees on the other. The law of sexual harassment, which offered little or no protection to the victim of such act at the workplace, has been rejuvenated by the values of human dignity, equality and freedom entrenched in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and judicially incorporated into the employer’s vicarious liability. This article explores the convergence of the protection offered the victim by the law of sexual harassment and the extended protection offered by the modern law of vicarious liability using the recent Ikwezi Municipality case as a focus pointThe recent judgment of Pickering J in PE v Ikwezi Municipality has brought to the fore the inherent difficulties of adjudicating the issues of sexual harassment at the workplace on the one hand, and the imposition of liability on the employer arising from the conduct of one of its employees on the other. The law of sexual harassment, which offered little or no protection to the victim of such act at the workplace, has been rejuvenated by the values of human dignity, equality and freedom entrenched in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and judicially incorporated into the employer’s vicarious liability. This article explores the convergence of the protection offered the victim by the law of sexual harassment and the extended protection offered by the modern law of vicarious liability using the recent Ikwezi Municipality case as a focus pointThe recent judgment of Pickering J in PE v Ikwezi Municipality has brought to the fore the inherent difficulties of adjudicating the issues of sexual harassment at the workplace on the one hand, and the imposition of liability on the employer arising from the conduct of one of its employees on the other. The law of sexual harassment, which offered little or no protection to the victim of such act at the workplace, has been rejuvenated by the values of human dignity, equality and freedom entrenched in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and judicially incorporated into the employer’s vicarious liability. This article explores the convergence of the protection offered the victim by the law of sexual harassment and the extended protection offered by the modern law of vicarious liability using the recent Ikwezi Municipality case as a focus pointThe recent judgment of Pickering J in PE v Ikwezi Municipality has brought to the fore the inherent difficulties of adjudicating the issues of sexual harassment at the workplace on the one hand, and the imposition of liability on the employer arising from the conduct of one of its employees on the other. The law of sexual harassment, which offered little or no protection to the victim of such act at the workplace, has been rejuvenated by the values of human dignity, equality and freedom entrenched in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and judicially incorporated into the employer’s vicarious liability. This article explores the convergence of the protection offered the victim by the law of sexual harassment and the extended protection offered by the modern law of vicarious liability using the recent Ikwezi Municipality case as a focus pointThe recent judgment of Pickering J in PE v Ikwezi Municipality has brought to the fore the inherent difficulties of adjudicating the issues of sexual harassment at the workplace on the one hand, and the imposition of liability on the employer arising from the conduct of one of its employees on the other. The law of sexual harassment, which offered little or no protection to the victim of such act at the workplace, has been rejuvenated by the values of human dignity, equality and freedom entrenched in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and judicially incorporated into the employer’s vicarious liability. This article explores the convergence of the protection offered the victim by the law of sexual harassment and the extended protection offered by the modern law of vicarious liability using the recent Ikwezi Municipality case as a focus pointThe recent judgment of Pickering J in PE v Ikwezi Municipality has brought to the fore the inherent difficulties of adjudicating the issues of sexual harassment at the workplace on the one hand, and the imposition of liability on the employer arising from the conduct of one of its employees on the other. The law of sexual harassment, which offered little or no protection to the victim of such act at the workplace, has been rejuvenated by the values of human dignity, equality and freedom entrenched in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and judicially incorporated into the employer’s vicarious liability. This article explores the convergence of the protection offered the victim by the law of sexual harassment and the extended protection offered by the modern law of vicarious liability using the recent Ikwezi Municipality case as a focus pointThe recent judgment of Pickering J in PE v Ikwezi Municipality has brought to the fore the inherent difficulties of adjudicating the issues of sexual harassment at the workplace on the one hand, and the imposition of liability on the employer arising from the conduct of one of its employees on the other. The law of sexual harassment, which offered little or no protection to the victim of such act at the workplace, has been rejuvenated by the values of human dignity, equality and freedom entrenched in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and judicially incorporated into the employer’s vicarious liability. This article explores the convergence of the protection offered the victim by the law of sexual harassment and the extended protection offered by the modern law of vicarious liability using the recent Ikwezi Municipality case as a focus point
Sovereign Immunity in Botswana: The Case for a Sovereign Immunities Act
Get PDFThis article makes the case for the promulgation of a Sovereign Immunities Act in Botswana. State or sovereign immunity in Botswana is governed by the common law, whereas diplomatic immunity is governed by the Diplomatic Immunities and Privileges Act, 1968. Several court decisions in Botswana on questions of sovereign and diplomatic immunity have revealed that there exists some confusion and conflation in the application of sovereign immunity and diplomatic immunity laws. The conflation has sometimes led to unfortunate decisions which incorrectly apply rules of diplomatic immunity to cases that are concerned with the immunity of States. The purpose of this article is, first, to analyse recent decisions in the area of state and diplomatic immunity in Botswana; second, to identify common areas of confusion; and, third, to take a comparative look at the United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their property, which though not yet in force, provides a succinct codification of customary international law rules of state immunity. The article then considers the benefits that could be gained through the promulgation of a Sovereign Immunities Act for Botswana. The paper concludes with a recommendation that Botswana should accede to and domesticate the Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property in the form of a Sovereign Immunities Act for Botswana
Fragmentation of International Law: Realities and Myths
Get PDFThis paper is an analysis of whether the phenomenon of fragmentation of international law is a real or imaginary problem. It deals with concerns of fragmentation from two fundamental perspectives. The first perspective addresses institutional fragmentation as emanating from the proliferation of international courts and tribunals. In this regard the paper assesses the consequences of such proliferation in light of possibilities of conflicting decisions and overlapping jurisdiction and the impact that this has on the coherence, uniformity and predictability of international law. This assessment is supported by a critical analysis of how the existent judicial institutions have approached various questions of international law in order to discern whether concerns of fragmentation are grounded or merely superficial. Moreover, the paper assesses the notion of substantive fragmentation of international law. This entails an examination of whether international law is under threat of fragmentation due to possibilities of conflicting norms motivated by the development of numerous specialised fields of international law such as ‘trade law’, ‘the law of the sea’, ‘environmental law’ and ‘human rights law’
A MODEL FOR THE CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF SERVING PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS IN BOTSWANA
Get PDFThe challenge of striking a balance in the provision of pedagogical and subject matter knowledge to generalist student teachers can be baffling for in-service teacher educators. This is compounded by several factors including the persistent need to respond to declining learner achievements; and the demands for 21st century skills which have necessitated instructional reforms that have rendered obsolete the teaching methods and approaches that were promoted in the past forcing serving teachers to require explicit instruction in the new ones while there is also the need to increase their subject matter knowledge. After reviewing literature and policy documents that are driving the educational reforms in Botswana, a model for a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) program is proposed for serving primary school teachers and conclude that an approach which incorporates school-based and university-based learning is the ideal.Keywords: generalists, in-service teacher education, Continuing Professional Developmen