14 Mar 2013

The school curricular has practical subjects through which practical life skills are taught to students to prepare learners for the world of work, leading to citizen economic empowerment.

Responding to a parliamentary question on March 13, education assistant minister, Mr Patrick Masimolole said these subjects included Business Studies, Design and Technology, Home Economics, Agriculture, Information and Communications Technology and Music and Arts.

He said to further empower citizens; the ministry signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Local Enterprise Authority (LEA) for them to help develop entrepreneurship awareness in schools and colleges, while the initiative started in Technical Colleges in December 2012.

At Kagiso Secondary School, he said the initiative was launched on February, 2013 and it would be rolled out to all senior secondary schools this year.

 He also noted that LEA would further facilitate attachment of students to LEA SMMEs during school vacations.

He said the ministry was working in partnership with Junior Achievement Botswana (JAB) engaging students in business simulation projects.

He further said stated that, through the ministry’s partnership with JAB, students participated in JAB competitions and over a year ago, the Botswana team took position two in such competitions held in Accra, Ghana.

Meanwhile, Mr Masimolole said that all these activities were facilitated by his ministry in collaboration with its partners to address citizen economic empowerment concerns.

Okavango MP, Mr Bagalatia Arone had wanted the Minister of Education and Skills Development to state strategies in place to address concerns raised in the Citizen Economic Empowerment Policy document of 2012. ENDS