Botswana, the next generation: At HPU

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Staff Writer

On the opposite side of the globe, in a tiny African nation called Botswana, students trained in Hawai'i are going to play an important role in building the nation's first television station.

Selawe Tau of Botswana is student president at Hawai'i Pacific University, where he's majoring in computer information and travel industry management. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

The students Chengeta speaks of are studying at HPU, a college that is playing a role in training future leaders in the small independent country. With a heavy marketing campaign in Botswana, HPU lures a large contingent annually from the other side of the world and gets good marks for providing the kind of business, tourism and science training Botswana wants its students to get.

"HPU has become one of the very popular schools that Botswana sends ... (students) to," said Chengeta. "The government feels the programs offered are pretty relevant to the Botswana economy."

But there's more. Almost 40 years ago a bond was forged between the young African nation and the young state of Hawai'i situated at the exact opposite side of the globe.

"We're antipodes," explained Selawe Tau, a Botswana student majoring in both computer information and travel industry management, and planning to continue on for a master's degree when he gets his bachelor's in January.

"In 1966, when we had our independence, the governor of Hawai'i came to Botswana and to our independence celebrations. He was the first."

In building Botswana, the government makes a heavy investment in its people, according to Chengeta. Approximately half of the 3,000 or so high school graduates every year are sent abroad to gain advanced degrees at government expense.

And now, the government is particularly encouraging studies in tourism, business and communications, areas where the Botswana economy needs to grow.

"We feel we're a government investment," said Tau, who served as student body president at HPU this past year. As far as he knows, he's the first African student elected to head the student government of an American university.

"The Botswana government sends students all over, especially to developed countries. They made their country great and we want to make our own country great. Education is free in Botswana and health (care) is free, too. The government pays the whole price. The most important thing they want is to educate us. And we feel we want to go back home and develop our people and develop ourselves."

Approximately 250 Botswana students come to the United States annually for higher education, said Chengeta, and HPU probably draws the biggest group. There are about 30 students from Botswana in various stages of studies at HPU.

While their education is paid for by the government, and programs that boost economic development are encouraged, students are free to study what they want.

"They want people to be business-oriented and science-oriented so we know exactly what to do when we go back," said Tau. "There are so many opportunities to be a business entrepreneur.

"You are required to go back," he said. "But whatever interests you, you just apply."

Tau's year-older cousin, for instance, is studying medicine in Norway and now doing a residency in North Carolina. But Tau plans to open a computer business back in Botswana, and get involved in politics.

Said Chengeta: "There's a focus on education, economic development and making sure young people have a role to play in the economy."

The TV station is a case in point. It will require an enormous number of people with a broad range of skills — skills that, for many, are being learned at HPU.

"Right now they could broadcast up to a radius of 50 kilometers in the city," said Chengeta. But the challenge is daunting, he said. The next steps are to see it pushed into remote and rural areas in a country where only about half the 1.8 million population has TV sets, which are now tuned to BBC reruns.

Though the TV station was government-built, Chengeta said there has been pressure to make it private. "People in the government said it should be private so it can be as neutral as possible, so people working are able to voice their concerns and issues without feeling they are taking sides."

The government policy of educating people abroad to give them a culturally diverse perspective is already bearing the fruit of unification within Botswana.

"Because we don't see any differences among us, we see ourselves as one people," said Tau. "That's why we are so unified in Botswana. A learned community makes an educated community makes a well-thinking community."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.