Functional education and human development are not mutually exclusive. To achieve an all-round development, the fourth Sustainable Development Goal partly emphasizes the need to ‘… promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’ by year 2030. This article, therefore, uses a case study approach to analyse the impact of a government funded adult basic education programme in improving literacy level of Sehithwa community in rural, northwestern Botswana. Using a snowball technique and questionnaire/interview schedule survey to sample and interview 30 adult basic education programme participants and 30 non-participants, respectively, and holding other factors constant, the article’s main thrust was to determine the difference in literacy attainment between the two groups. Results from the T-test analysis performed showed that there was a significant difference in participants’ and non-participants’ age, association membership, and household size at p ≤ 0.00 level. Nonetheless, there was no significant difference in literacy attainment between the two groups, perhaps as a result of lack of effectiveness and other challenges associated with the implementation of the literacy programme in the study area.