27 Mar 2014

Human resource is the everlasting diamonds that can diversify the country's economy, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education and Skills Development, Ms Grace Muzila, said at the official opening of the Tertiary Education Conference in Gaborone.

“We cannot have the other sectors without human resource, for all the sectors to succeed it is through human resource,” she said. Ms Muzila said career educators ought to undertake research to be aware of both the demand and the supply status of the economy. Learners had to enroll for programmes and disciplines they have passion and capabilities to eliminate retakes and progression matters.

She said there had been a mismatch in the economy of Botswana as the demand and the supply were incongruent. However, she explained, the mismatch was being addressed by bringing both the suppliers or trainers and the demand or those who hired on board.

She said the 2009 Human Resource Strategy states that by 2022 the human resource would replace the mining sector as the mainstay of the economy -- although not completely.

Ms Muzila said her ministry was going through transformation to address these issues, with legislative reviews, with bills coming up for the Botswana Qualification Authority and the Human Resource Development Council.

Two other bills: one on the Botswana Examination Council; the other on Teaching Council would go through Parliament this year. The universities and tertiary education bills were also under way to make one unified law.

She added that the ministry did a situational analysis and was aware of the challenges, adding that the implementation of reception classes in 120 primary schools was one of the measures taken to address some of the challenges.

The Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Human Resource Development Council, Dr Patrick Molutsi, said Botswana, like other countries worldwide, should invest in human resource to export skilled labour and benefit remittance which has added GDP of countries such as India.

Dr Molutsi however said research showed that Batswana did not have high skills that were needed for global competitiveness.

He said the plan of the Human Resource Development Council was to bring trainers, employers and government on board, and to determine the labour market demand. Ends