30 Oct 2017

In an effort to produce well rounded graduates that are ready for the global market, Botho University engaged with industry leaders during their annual feedback forum to share ideas on how to improve their product.

 

Giving her remarks, the university vice chancellor Ms Priya Iyer said feedback from the industry had helped the University to expand their programme offering and align it with what the industry needed so that graduates could be better equipped with the necessary knowledge.

 

“As Botho University, it is our responsibility to make our graduates employable for the market. We provide them with the knowledge and we expect them to gain and apply soft skills such as communication, attributes and attitudes out there in organizations that they have been placed in for internship opportunities,” she said.

 

Botho University focuses on learner engagements, student support learning resources as well as teaching quality and skills development in order to achieve career, personal and social traits for its graduates.

 

She said the partnership forged between the university and the industry players was important as their graduates adjusted and learnt how to function in the industry post-graduation.

 

She further noted that they used the feedback provided by the industry leaders to enhance their programmes and other activities provided by Botho University to better their graduates so that they become employable in future.

 

“Our focus is not only on employability or being employed, we are also trying to get our graduates to be in a better position to think like entrepreneurs in order to help diversify the country’s economy. 

 

As such, we have set up an entrepreneur lab where we are enhancing the knowledge and the ability for our graduates to start up their own enterprises after they graduate,” she added.

 

Ms Iyer said once the programme was conceived, the university conducted an industry feedback to ascertain if the programme met the industry requirements. 

 

She however said the feedback depended on whether or not they had been able to reach as many organizations as possible and on the amount of response they received.

 

She said the forum provided discussions and valuable input on how to enhance programmes. Furthermore, they conduct market research in a form of survey to find out how such programmes would be useful in the industry.

 

For her part, the chief executive officer for Botswana Insurance Fund Management (BIFM) Ms Neo Bogatsu applauded the university and urged them to continue engaging the industry to help them improve where necessary as they were keen to help the universities to co-develop their graduates.

 

She said that the entry requirements for the programmes offered at universities should be right so that students could be easily trained. Ms Bogatsu further urged the industry leaders to use local graduates as they have acquired the necessary skills as that will in turn increase the employability rate in Botswana and in turn grow the economy of the country.