23 Nov 2014

Botswana currently has a tertiary participation rate of about 20 per cent against the desired threshold of 35 per cent that the country needs for active and positive engagement with the knowledge society issues, Vice President, Mr Mokgweetsi Masisi has said.

Mr Masisi, also Minister of Education and Skills Development said this at the 10^th graduation ceremony of the Botswana College of Distance and Open Learning (BOCODOL) on Saturday, November 22.

The ceremony, Mr Masisi said was in effect, the epitome of hard work and success of not just BOCODOL as an institution increasingly inclined to higher learning, but also of the 712 graduates that were conferred with certificates, diplomas, undergraduate degrees and other academic distinctions.

He noted that pressure on the national education system to produce graduates of the right quality and quantity was mainly exerted by changes in population size and structure, complex labour-market skills requirements, increasing demand for tertiary education, the prevailing socio-economic imperatives and the ever-increasing global competition, all combined. 

To avert the pressure and respond in an inclusive manner, he said Botswana had to exploit the use of numerous education and training strategies, “the centre-pin of which should include an efficacious and well developed Open and Distance Learning (ODL) system.”

Open and Distance Learning, Mr Masisi said, provided a mechanism for reaching the unreached with education- closing the existing inequalities of access to education as well as for providing a sound base for sustainable poverty eradication. 

Its cost-effectiveness and inclination to optimising the use of government’s existing infrastructure and human capital, he said also made it a natural choice for inclusion in government’s list of priorities. 

“We are compelled by the economic down-turn to think innovatively and prioritise lower cost, high impact initiatives and projects as part of our strategy for developing Botswana going forward,” he added.

As a result, he said government, guided by its 2008 Tertiary Education Policy, had resolved to broaden the mandate of BOCODOL to include university education provision.

Currently, he said government was racing against time to pass the Universities and Tertiary Education Institutions’ Bill that should, among others, legitimise transformation and ultimate conversion of BOCODOL into an Open University. 

With such envisaged conversion, he said government also hoped to capitalise on the economies of scale associated with ODL, as well as increase access to tertiary education and expedite self-sufficiency in human resource development, leverage Information Communication Technologies to enhance flexible and blended teaching and learning and reduce education and training costs by promoting learning on the job.

Additionally, Mr Masisi said government also hoped to provide capacity for prompt response to labour market requirements for in-service and continuing professional development programmes and support the country’s Education Hub’s aspirations of building capacity and flexibility for development and delivery of labour-market driven tertiary programmes to meet local, regional and international industry. 

“Our confidence to achieve on these objectives stems from the fact that the envisaged University would be building on a solid base and enviable track record of BOCODOL,” he added.

The Open University, he said would also leverage current BOCODOL’s local and international reputation, as well as existing network of regional and study centres towards enhanced provision of ODL in Botswana. ENDS