23 Oct 2017

Minister of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology, Dr Alfred Madigele says there is need to strengthen the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sub-sector as it could be the answer to the unemployment quagmire.

Addressing Gaborone Technical College staff and students during a familiarisation visit on October 19, Dr Madigele said it was high time problems besieging the sector were given utmost attention.

He said TVET was crucial in transforming the education sector as well as to address skills mismatch challenges.

He said it was disheartening that technical colleges were still producing students that were not industry ready because of lack of exposure.

As such, he said, there was need for organisational change and development to ensure that courses offered at TVET colleges were relevant and applicable to local industries.

“We need to closely look at our programmes to see if they are industry relevant,” he said.

Again, he said there was need to change attitude towards misconception that people who enrolled in TVET courses were uneducated.

“Most countries that are successful made it through TVET because they prioritised the needs of their industries and general labour market by producing learners that are industry ready,” he said.

He encouraged students to remain relevant, take their studies seriously because they could employ themselves and create employment for others through the skills they acquired.

Further, he said structural deficiency issues were pertinent among all technical colleges and needed paramount attention.

He added that capacity issues at technical colleges also remained a problem and kept student community in anxiety because they were not sure of continuity of programmes offered and always speculating, something he said was undesirable for learning.

For their part, students briefed the minister about a plethora of problems besieging TVET sub-sector, among them lack of continuity of programmes offered, under manpower, untimely results, lack of equipment, laxity and absenteeism of some lecturers and that their examinations were prone to errors.

They said they also lacked industrial training and only acquired theory that minimally benefitted them or defeated the purpose of technical training.

On the other hand, lecturers and support staff complained of shortage of staff, improper placement of officers, further training, accommodation like other sister institutions in the country and that there were gaps in the organisational structure which affected their progression.

They also said the college had too many incidents of examination crisis because of late release of results that were marked outside the country, something they said put their college in a bad light and dented the college reputation.

Deputy permanent secretary, tertiary education, research, science and technology, Mr Aupa Masesane admitted the shortcomings at technical colleges, but noted that some of the staff complaints needed thorough investigations in order to come up with lasting solutions. ENDS