01 Aug 2019

Assistant Minister of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology Mr Moiseraele Goya has explained to Parliament that for a student to be eligibile for placement  at external institutions one would have qualified for the top achievers programme.

Responding to a question, Mr Goya said  for one to qualify for the programme they would have to had attained 6 A* at BGCSE or equivalent.

Mr Goya said a student qualified for a career designation after Bachelor of Science general year one or year two provided their programme of choice was not offered in local institutions.

He said for 2019/2020 year one, cut off point cumulative GPA was 4.0 while for year two was 3.5.

He also said the other group which qualified for external placement were those on elite sponsorship.

These, he said were nominees submitted by the BNSC through the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development for creative and performing arts such as Miss Botswana, My Star and sports cadre.

He also said the other group was those who were on sponsorships offered to Botswana by countries that had bilateral relations with the country.

Mr Goya said the ministry through department of tertiary education financing advertised the scholarships and advised the eligible students to apply online as per the advertisement.

He explained that the selection criteria was dependent on terms and conditions of the scholarship.

Further, Mr Goya said the reinstatement sponsorship was given to those students who were initially sponsored by government but could not complete their studies because of various reasons.

He said the procedure was that every year the DTEF put up an advert for reinstatements in selected programmes and it was expected that only those programmes in the advert would be applied for.

He said the advert might further state the number of years that one had been out of programmes to be applied for and the number of years one had been out of school were a function of the budget.

Mr Goya said progression sponsorship was offered to students who would have completed their certificate in the advertised programme and wishing to progress to diploma of the same programme.

He said there was generally no progression from degree to Masters Degree because the mandate of the DTEF was to sponsor for undergraduate programmes.

“The only exception is psychology because graduates of Psychology can only practice if they had Masters Degree,” he said.

Francistown East MP Mr Buti Billy had asked the minister to state the eligibility criteria for placing students at external institutions and the procedure for reinstatement of sponsorship as well as the procedure for progression sponsorship. Ends