Botswana's government closed all primary and secondary schools on Monday (16 May) after violent clashes between police and students angry over a strike by teachers and other public workers. The violence began last week at a secondary school in Molepolole, a village 60km south-east of the capital Gaborone, and spread to schools across the country. Students have missed most of their classes since teachers and other public-sector workers went on strike on 18 April. Public service employees are demanding a 16 per cent salary increment, while government is offering five per cent.

The ongoing public servants' strike in Botswana has seen that country's state-owned media cover only one side of the story, writes Thapelo Ndlovu on Free African Media. 'Despite being denied the opportunity to air their views in the state media, the striking Botswana public service workers have not effectively used the new media, especially social network sites. The Internet is largely available in Botswana, but workers and the public in general don’t yet fully use it. Facebook is the most popular, but largely among the savvy youth, most of whom are not interested in labour or political issues.'

An indefinite strike by public-sector workers in diamond-rich Botswana is threatening the ruling party’s 45-year grip on power and denting its image as the steward of one of Africa’s success stories. The main public employees’ union said more than 90,000 workers have joined the strike, which has ground public services to a near halt and forced schools, clinics and government offices to operate on skeleton staff. The country’s three largest opposition parties have moved to capitalise on the unrest.
Duma Boko, head of the opposition Botswana National Front, called on Botswana to replicate the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.

'The Botswana Caucus for Women in Politics has failed to realise the objectives it was intended for, but we will not give up on it just yet,' says Margaret Nasha. The BCWP is a platform established to enable women from all political parties to converge and support each other in their attempts to make their mark in a male-dominated field. When it was set up 15 years ago, its membership was initially restricted to women in parliament. Nasha, the first woman to serve as Speaker of Parliament in Botswana, explained that four years in, they realised that only women from the ruling Botswana Democratic Party were benefiting from it and they decided to open membership to any active woman member of a political party.