27 May 2019

Department of Skills Development acting director, Ms Motlalepula Mabisi has implored Jwaneng town councillors to be patient with developments at Jwaneng Technical College (JTC) as they were a result of the ongoing transformational process.

Ms Mabisi said that a transformation process came with challenges and unfamiliar developments, and that the department was confident that with time, challenges such as shortage of classrooms, equipment and lecture rooms would be sorted.

She said that JTC was taken over by government in 2015 together with other technical colleges, and that during the taking over, most of the technical colleges were in bad shape, and that government had done a lot to bring them to a good state, including the human resource element.

She said that Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA) gave JTC up to September end, to have accredited all the new programmes currently unaccredited.

Ms Mabisi also admitted that they had a challenge of staff shortage at technical colleges around the country, and said that the ministry took a decision to engage temporary lecturers, although she indicated that only 178 had shown interest for the available 243 vacancies advertised.

“At the moment the ministry is posting these temporary lecturers, and we have also ensured that we engaged rightful candidates through competency based interviews, which were mostly practicals,” she said.

She also indicated that shortage of lecturers and equipment would not in any way affect the lessons as the technical college courses material at foundation level cut across courses such that lecturers and equipment could be used across varying courses.

Ms Mabisi said that the issue of students alternating in classes was not a result of shortage, but was the nature of tertiary institutions as they operated with an alternating timetable.

She also said that the tender for procuring equipment for the college was at an advanced stage, and also informed the councillors that the ministry was planning to increase the allowance for technical college students to bring it at par with other tertiary institutions.

The current allowance is P300 per month for both on and off campus students. 

Ms Mabisi was responding after the councillors indicated concern that students at Jwaneng Technical College had not been attending classes because the courses they registered for had not been accredited.

The deputy mayor, Ms Olga Ditsie raised a concern that the institution had admitted a high number of students for new programmes while not ready in terms of infrastructure development and human resource capacity.

She said that students had been complaining to them that such a shortage of classrooms, lecturers and equipment forced the school to run lessons at alternating times.

She said such a gap in attending classes promoted delinquency and pleaded with the ministry to even consider closing the college temporarily while they sort out the problem.

The councillor for Mogale ward, Mr Ronica Ntsimako on the other hand complained that the college had been struggling to support its carrying capacity such that over the years admissions were cut. 

He said it was now surprising that all of a sudden, the college admitted almost double its capacity. ends