'Thomas Tlou' is a
Botswana academic and historian, and former representative of Botswana at the
United Nations.
Tlou studied at
Johns Hopkins and
Wisconsin universities in the US. In 1971 he joined the
University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland,(UBLS), the fore-runner of the
University of Botswana, to teach history. He left academia to perform government service and from 1976 to 1980 was Botswana's permanent representative at the United Nations.
Tlou was the first
Motswana (Botswana citizen) to be vice-chancellor of the University of Botswana, serving from 1985 to 1998. Thereafter he continued at the university as professor of history, finally retiring in 2005.
Tlou has also been chair of the
Association of Commonwealth Universities and served on the executive board of the
Association of African Universities. In Botswana he has served on the Tertiary Education Council and
as of 2005 he was chair of the Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis.
[1]
He is married to Professor
Sheila Tlou, Botswana's minister of health and a former associate professor of nursing at the University of Botswana.
Awards
In 2006 Tlou was awarded an honorary doctorate from the
University of Cape Town[2]
He has also received the Botswana Presidential Order of Honour, and was made a ''Chevalier dans L'Ordre des
Palmes académiques'' by France.
Works
Tlou has written or co-written many of the standard texts on Botswana history.
★
History of Botswana, , Thomas, Tlou, Macmillan, 1997, ISBN 0-333-36531-3
★
Seretse Khama, 1921-1980, , Thomas, Tlou, Macmillan, 1995,
★
A History of Ngamiland: 1750 to 1906, , Thomas, Tlou, Macmillan, 1985,
References
1. Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis
2. Honorary doctorates for June graduation Vol 25 No 14
★
Tlou gets UCT honorary degrees Samuel Moribame