19 Sep 2022

Assistant minister in the Ministry of Education and Skills Development, Ms Nnaniki Makwinja says ITEC scholarships are important given their focus on skills development.

Speaking at the ITEC Day celebration hosted by the High Commission of India in Gaborone on Saturday, Ms Makwinja said ITEC scholarships also assisted in empowering women, particularly that the programmes also enabled participants to get into business.

“As a country we are where we are, not because we are not educated, not because we do not have the funds, but I think the problem is not having practical skills to pursue business,” said Ms Makwinja, who is also Lentsweletau/Mmopane MP.

Ms Makwinja lamented that Botswana, according to the global competitive report, had been ranked number one in poor work ethics.

For his part, former MP for Shoshong, Mr Phillip Makgalemele was happy that women in the area had benefitted from the ITEC programme offered by the High Commission of India in Botswana.

Mr Makgalemele said during his tenure they found out that India had programmes that trained women in the rural areas.

He said they then sent applications for two programmes; including the one which focused on semi illiterate women from rural areas who were trained to become solar engineers.

“As we all know renewable energy is a very important development and government takes it seriously. 

In fact we see it as part of many opportunities for economic growth and diversification,” he said.

Mr Makgalemele also said the second programme they enrolled for sent young Batswana to India for six to eight weeks.

“In our context the focus was on business so as to build young people’s capacity. 

A number of Batswana were therefore trained in a six-month programme of solar energy capacity-building programme for women,” he said.

Mr Makgalemele further indicated that 22 women were trained in the solar energy space in the Shoshong constituency alone.

“Basically I want to confirm that these programmes are very important and they do present unique a opportunity for Batswana to fast-track their capacity-building in initiatives within our country,” he said. BOPA