21 Mar 2017

Ghanzi-based Bokamoso Education Trust (BET) is focused on improving access to early childhood development and education for all children, especially in remote areas.

In an interview, BET coordinator, Ms Stella Nguluka said the NGO funded by Roger Federer Foundation, has for the past six years made strides in covering other parts of the country with focus on early childhood day care centre teacher training.

She said BET training programme targeted remote area communities that are far from services, thereby making access to basic services such as pre-schools training facilities difficult.

“We provide early childhood teachers with specialised training in child development as it is important in promoting children’s love for learning,” she said.

She said by providing quality, but culturally based formal training to early childhood education care givers, BET has helped address the problem of high rate of drop-outs from primary schools by fostering better transitions into formal school and life.

Ms Nguluka noted that through BET, the idea was to enable children from all backgrounds to have access to quality early childhood education without compromising their identities.

She said some of the challenges noted were that most caregivers in remote areas had minimum qualifications and relied on the experience acquired over the years.

Thus she said BET was helping close that gap as it had tailor-made training suitable for the level of understanding of those undergoing training. “The programme allows for students to bring a wide range of first languages, cultural backgrounds and experiences to enrich the early childhood programme,” she said.

Ms Nguluka said BET training has been registered and accredited with Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA) and it was a culturally sensitive program showing interest and respect for diversity of culture.

BET also offers an Integrated Early Childhood Education Development certificate, which has been developed by Project Concern International and United States Agency for International Development in collaboration with government partners and some NGO’s in Botswana. ENDS