Students’ Unrest in Tertiary Institutions of Botswana: Implications on Teaching and Learning

This study explored the factors fueling the students’ unrest and its implications as well as suggesting the possible measures that can be used to control this phenomenon in Tertiary institutions of Botswana. The study was guided by the Cognitive Dissonance Theory to explore the factors fueling the students’ unrest. People prefer consistency or consonance to inconsistence or dissonance and they strive to maintain the balance between their attitudes, beliefs and behaviour. Whenever they fail to maintain the balance between their attitudes and behaviour, they experience cognitive dissonance which then requires them to restore the balance. Sprint Hall (1997). It has been observed in this study that when the students experience an imbalance of their attitudes, beliefs and behaviour, they restore that balance by protesting.

The study adopted the mixed method and the data collection techniques used were the open-ended and closed-ended questionnaires, interviews, observations and document analysis to explore students’ unrest from both the students and the staff of Gaborone Technical College. The students were participating on the open-ended questionnaires to get the actual truth about their unrest while the staff and management participated in the closed-ended questionnaires. Interviews were conducted on both the students and the lectures while observation involved the students only.