03 Jul 2019

The Junior Achievement Botswana (JAB) office manager, Ms Banyana Mannaesi says their students’ company Programme has had a significant impact in the development of young entrepreneurs.

Speaking during the JAB southern region best business expose’ which was held in Lobatse recently, Ms Mannaesi explained that the JAB Company Programme had grown significantly over the past two and a half decades.

The programme provide students with the opportunity to development entrepreneurial skills by running their own small manufacturing or service providing companies.

“The reason we say we are growing is that the number of students we are reaching out every year show growth. The numbers of schools also show growth. For example, we used not to have Orapa schools in the programme, but right now we have them participating,” she said.

Ms Mannaesi said the challenge they had, like most Non-Government Organisations, was financial. “The financial challenges make us slow to cover all the areas we want. If it was not because of financial challenges, all the schools would by now know about the JAB programme,” she said.

The programme manager, Mr Tiboka Mhlambi said the objective of the programme was to provide young people with the tools and skills to prepare them for their professional future.

“Some of them will create jobs for themselves while others are going to become employees and would add value to their employers because they have learned skills such as decision making, leadership and team work,” he said.

Mr Mhlambi said there were some JAB products who were now running their own enterprises thanks to the skills they gained from the JAB company programme.

The southern region best business expose brought together a total of 44 companies which did well in their respective sub-regional competitions last month.

The companies came from schools in the Kanye, Lobatse, Moshupa, South East and Kweneng education sub regions.

There were also schools competing from Mahalapye and Palapye sub-regions.

They competed in three categories of junior schools, senior schools and technical colleges under seven different themes.

The themes were environment, wildlife and tourism, consultancy services, design, technology and infrastructure, arts and crafts, manufacturing, agribusiness, as well as wellness and recreation. 

The best three companies with cut off points of 112 or above from each category progressed to the national best business expose’ to be held this weekend at Bokamoso Junior Secondary School in Gaborone.

At the finals they would compete with winners from the north region.

The best team at the national best business expose’ will represent Botswana at the JA Africa company of the year competition in December. The JA Africa company of the year includes all countries that have JA programme.

The following schools took position one in their category:

Technical college category:

Palapye Technical College (Environment, wildlife and tourism, and Design, tehnology and infrastructure themes)

Senior School category:

Madiba Senior Secondary School (Consultancy services, and Manufacturing)

Lobatse Senior Secondary School (Design, technology and infrastructure, and Agribusiness)

Kagiso Senior Secondary School (Arts and Crafts, Wellness and Recreation)

Naledi Senior Secondary School (Environment, wildlife and recreation)

Junior School category

Kgatadimo Junior Secondary School (Environment, wildlife and tourism, Wellness and Recreation, and Agribusiness)

Parwe Junior Secondary School (Consultancy services)

Mabogo Junior Secondary School (Arts and Crafts)

Taung Junior Secondary School (Manufacturing). Ends