Soon after being posted to the Swaneng Hill School, Serowe in 1962, Peter Van Rensburg identified the following social problems: 1) school leavers unable to find paid employment. 2) lack of resources and facilities. 3) inappropriate attitude to education; simply a ladder on which ambition climbs to privilege. Van Rensburg believed that the solution lay in a system of education founded on core subjects like English and Mathematics combined with instruction in skills which could be used in production. The goods could then be sold to pay for instructors and materials for further production. The school was therefore structured in terms of discrete, self-funded brigades of builders, carpenters, mechanics etc. Van Rensburg placed a strong emphasis on skills as opposed to certificates.

Whilst providing a tangible basis for sustainable employment however, it would appear that the business grew far too quickly and ran into liquidity problems (production was often dependent on expensive machinery) coincident with broader social-economic problems at the national level. In addition to the financial issues, Bray refers to deeper problems related to social stratification and structural unemployment. It is apparent that skill training could never compensate for lack of public and private investment in rural development. Furthermore, it seems that Van Rensburg had misread the notion of educational relevance. Whilst he was correct to recognise the disconnect between an educational instiution and its local environment, Van Rensburg now suggests that what trainees actually require is greater awareness of Botswana from a national and international perspective in order to make better personal decisions i.e. a development studies course. A subsequent report (the Brigade system collapsed in 1980) indicates that brigades had positive ideals and a strong impact on rural communities.

It would appear that the approach of Van Rensburg was structural sound and could form the basis of an equivalent school in Ghana. It is also a graphic illustration of how the changing social and economic context define the educational environment rather than vice versa; the school curriculum is a dynamic medium, necessarily untidy and unfinished (Hawes, 1979)