15 Sep 2022

Review of the Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) Act is underway to ensure inclusiveness and improve uptake of the Human Resource Development Fund (HRDF).

HRDC acting chief executive officer, Mr Meshack Tafa, said this when appraising the North West District councillors on the organisation’s mandate.

He said the HRDF Impact Study had shown low uptake of the Training Levy Fund, which was intended to reimburse levy payers the costs of training citizen employees 

Mr Tafa said other challenges revealed by the study were low commitment by the industry, accreditation issues, exorbitant pricing by trainers and failure to seek pre-approvals, among other things.

Other projects underway, he added, included improvement of the fund administration through review of the HRDF levy order and reimbursement regulations as well as introduction of online claims processing system (e-HRDF) to ensure efficiency.

Mr Tafa also noted that the fund had already supported more than 15 000 graduate interns and artisan development for the mining sector, all of which were geared towards skills improvement

The companies with a turnover of P1 million and above, he said, were required to contribute to the fund, adding the fund had financed training of over 30 000 employees annually.

He further informed councillors that HRDC was charged with advising, planning and coordination of the development of Botswana’s human capital development.

The council, Mr Tafa said, wanted Batswana to have the right skills and access to a wide range of employment opportunities both nationally and globally. 

The civic leaders were also taken through strategic initiatives undertaken by the council in an effort to coordinate and implement the National Human Resource Development Strategy (NHRDS).

HRDC strategic intent, Mr Tafa said, was to transform Botswana’s education and training into a demand driven system through targeted planning, coordination and funding in partnership with key stakeholders with the aim of developing a globally competitive human resource by 2036.

He explained that Botswana was aspiring to become a knowledge based economy, hence HRDC’s responsibility to drive the development of human resource through the provision of policy advice, planning, funding, coordination and effective collaboration.

Mr Tafa shared that the strategy goals focused on early childhood education to long life, adding there was need to establish more pre-schools to have a knowledge based society.

He said the 2021 gross enrolment stood at 20.4 per cent and urged legislators to encourage members of the community to enrol their children in pre-schools in order to receive quality early childhood education.

The primary education gross enrolment was satisfactory as it exceeded 100 per cent, secondary education stood at 81.1, while tertiary education was 20.2.

As a result, Mr Tafa called on stakeholders to work hard to improve the tertiary figure as it was not good.

“We need to train more people so that we can export them”, he added.

Mr Tafa also informed councillors about the Labour Market Observatory (LMO), a platform that understands, monitors and reports on labour market patterns and trends and provides strategic guidance for planning, policy formulation and programme development.

The benefits of the LMO included registration and interaction of job seekers and employers, increased visibility of job seekers to potential employers (one stop shop), improved data integrity job and vacancy registration as well as accurate placement and/or job matching.

Mr Tafa noted that 136 868 job seekers had registered on the platform, 404 employers, 386 vacancies registered, adding 450 had already been recruited.

“These trends are ever changing owing to changes in demographics, technological advances, occupations, skills required and training demands, hence, constant monitoring for effective policy interventions,” he added. Ends