04 May 2017

In an effort to provide quality education and training,  Botswana Qualifications Authority, (BQA) has come up with a new system to guide all education providers.

Addressing the media this week, BQA chief executive officer, Mr Abel Modungwa said previously the responsibility was spread between Botswana Training Authority and the Tertiary Education Council

He said BQA had taken over the responsibility from the former entities that were responsible for quality assurance.

He added that as a result of the landscape, there were several challenges that were identified and which led to the establishment of BQA.

The challenges, he noted, were that the quality assurance system was fragmented to the extent that there were two bodies dealing with the same assignment.

“But prior to that, it was even worse as there were many players  claiming to do quality assurance,” said Mr Modungwa, adding that “although there was an improvement it did not go far enough.” He said now that there was one body, issues of  poor coordination would be a thing of the past.

He said BQA would publish the list of all accredited institutions and the courses they were accredited to offer, adding that they were going to apply the law to the letter.

He noted that BQA’s key objective was to provide for and maintain the national credit and qualification’s framework.

Mr Modungwa added that they also have the responsibility to coordinate education, training and skill development to ensure quality assurance from early childhood, tertiary education as well  as lifelong learning.

“In other words we are responsible for the entire educational pipeline in the country, and we have a duty to ensure that the quality of education in the country is equal to and comparable to other similar systems in the world,” he said.

Mr Modungwa said the country was currently not happy with  the basic education examination results, adding that it was the responsibility of BQA to ensure that there were quality assurance systems in basic education to ensure improvement.

He said they expected local qualifications to compare favourably with other qualifications in the rest of the world. ENDS