Chandapiwa Baputaki
19 December 2008
The education hub that was established to position Botswana to become a regional centre of excellence in education is still in its conceptualising stage.
However, the education hub, with its coordinator, was established earlier this year to propel the nation towards the realisation of the dream but last month they were still in a workshop to work out the objectives of the hub. The main objective of the hub was to attract the best institutions in Botswana so that they could also attract students from other countries to study in the country.
When interviewed earlier this year, the education minister, Jacob Nkate stated that the world will envy the primary, secondary and tertiary education, which is their target. He said the ministry was working hard right to realise that ambition. He pointed out that a medical school was coming up as well as the second university in Palapye, the University of Botswana expansion, as well as the take over and convention of brigades, technical colleges.
Nkate indicated that these are the flagship projects, which would be the main features of the education hub. The ministry also has a running programme called 'The Microsoft Schools Initiative', through which they are spreading IT skills to all junior secondary schools and senior secondary schools in the country.
The hub coordinator, Bridget John said that nothing much has been done. She said a feasibility study to assess the viability of establishing a tertiary education hub in Botswana have just been completed and they are still looking at the recommendations.
She is expecting a groundbreaking session at the Botswana International University of Science and Technology next year February after a local company have been identified to partner with government over the building of the institution.
However, the issue of attracting qualitative universities to invest in the country is raising eyebrows after the recruited private institutions where government is sponsoring students are offering sub-standard education to the students. BIUST project has been stalling for a long time with its deadline being postponed many times but UB released their expansion master plan two weeks ago.
It remains to be seen whether issues of quality would be taken into consideration when "repute universities" are urged to set up in the country. The plan of sponsoring students in those private institutions seem to be backfiring into the ministry's face as students continue to complain about unqualified teachers, shallow course content and lack of facilities in those institutions. The Tertiary Education Council which registered those institutions have not done any justice to the students by admitting that the institutions were registered before the courses could be accredited. The accreditation would be done after students have been at those schools for the past two years.
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