22 Mar 2018

Parliament has approved a budget proposal of P5 billion for the Ministry of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology for the 2018/2019 financial year.

Minister, Dr Alfred Madigele who presented the budget proposal said it comprised of P4.7 billion for the recurrent budget and P302 million for the development budget.

The largest share of the ministry’s recurrent budget of P1.7billion is proposed for the eight parastatals under the ministry.

Dr Madigele said the proposed budget for parastatals represented an increase of P300million or 20.6per cent compared to the previous year’s allocation.

He said 68 per cent of this increase was allocated to the University of Botswana to cater for the adjustment of staff salaries while about 12 per cent was allocated to the Botswana Open University to cater for its transition to University status.

“The rest of the increase is allocated to BIUST to cater for its continuous growth, BQA to support the accreditation process and BAC mainly for maintenance services,” he said.

The sum of over P2.4billion has been allocated for tertiary education financing, of which the 97 per cent or P2.3billion is proposed for student financing.

He explained that the Department of Teacher Training and Technical Education had been allocated P378.5 million to cover training and development of lecturers and trainers as well as operational expenditure for technical colleges and colleges of education.

Dr Madigele said the Department of Research, Science and Technology had been allocated P27.8 million meant to enhance the department’s capacity to improve research, science, technology and innovation.

About P14 million has been proposed for Radiation Protection Inspectorate to be used to support the promotion of public safety and security in the use of nuclear technologies.
The ministry’s overall proposal for the development budget for the 2018/2019 financial year is P302.4 million for projects under the ministry headquarters.

These projects include financing the ongoing construction of the BIH Icon building, upgrading of Local Area Network (LAN) for colleges of education and technical colleges and procurement of equipment for Oodi College of Applied Arts and Technology.

The second largest share of the development budget is proposed for Research and Innovation projects at P135.5million or 44.8 per cent of the development budget. Ends