20 Mar 2018

Knowledge clusters-science parks should be created to turn innovative ideas into functional products and services that drive industries.

This was said by European Union University Teacher Development Advisor at the University of Botswana (UB), Professor Roy Du Pré when delivering a keynote address during a public lecture titled, Moving Botswana from a resource-based to a knowledge-based economy in Gaborone recently.

He said this would be in line with moving Botswana forward to reach globally competitive levels in a knowledge-based economy,

He said the situation where universities were ivory towers detached from the industry and the community defeated the idea of achieving a knowledge-based economy.

He said universities were creators of knowledge and therefore the formation of tactful synergies between industries, universities and government could drive Botswana towards achieving the much needed knowledge economy.

Professor Du Pré noted that universities were by nature generators of knowledge, who churn the human resource capital needed by the industry.

Thus, he said they were pots of fresh ideas which, if fitting legislative framework and policies were put in place, could turn Botswana into an industrious knowledge-based economy.

“When you have a critical mass of people who are creating knowledge and coming up with innovative ideas and making products out of this then you have a knowledge-based economy,” he said. UB, he said had a long-based pyramid of undergraduates constituting a larger percentage of intake while the postgraduate, which included the much needed intensive research occupied a smaller percentage.

“We have to do something, we cannot keep feeding people with content-content. When they go out there they sit and have no work. More than 50 per cent of youth are unemployed,” he said.

Further, he said government should strive to facilitate knowledge creation through availing the necessary resources, adding that government was doing its part through education funding but more needed to be done.  

He said universities should actively source funds for research to bring ideas to light and compete in the global space.

Developed nations, he noted, had been able to achieve a knowledge-based economy for the reason that they were able to come up with innovations using existing inventions.

He cited countries such as Singapore which were very poor in the 1960s but were able to achieve a knowledge-based economy for the reason that they concentrated on key areas and developed their mechatronics sectors, food and health sciences.

“Singapore in 1960 had no economy. They worked on being labour intensive, skill intensive and then they became capital intensive. Its GDP is now 200 billion British pounds. They have produced a science park called

Fusionopolis, which drives knowledge economy in Singapore today,” he noted. Also he cited Russia as one of the countries that had achieved a knowldge-based economy saying after the collapse of communism Russia, which was far behind in development decided to challenge Silicon Valley by establishing Skalkovo as its first knowledge hub.”

Through this development, he said the Russians went all out and got the best people in the industry irrespective of their nationality and brought them into their board to get their knowledge, information and skills.

Thus, he said if Botswana was to achieve a knowledge-based economy it must be ready to open its boarders to foreigners who would impart the necessary skills and knowledge.

He noted that Botswana’s economy was too dependent on the finite mineral resources. “What will happen if we run out of resources? We don’t have an alternative. If we go back to agriculture we will go back to becoming an agrarian society because even our agriculture is not developed,” he said. He said the time had come for Botswana to act and realise a knowledge based economy to compete in the global space.

For his part, UB’s Professor Richard Tabulawa said there was need for Botswana to leapfrog the industrial economy to get to the knowledge-based economy to catch up with the rest of the world.
He noted that there was need to reform the education system to produce industry ready graduates for the reason that the world of work had changed. Ends