13 Oct 2022

University of Botswana has over the years seen exponential growth that is worth celebrating ruby jubilee in Kanye today.

The institution’s media and communications manager, Mr Thomas Nkhoma told BOPA in an interview Wednesday that the Kanye event would mainly feature celebrations characterised by speeches, music and dance as well as paying homage to the late second president, Sir Ketumile Masire as former Chancellor of the University of Botswana.

One of the activities for the day would be laying of wreaths at his grave as a symbol of paying tribute to the late president Masire.

He said given that Bangwaketse also contributed to the ‘Motho le Motho Kgomo’ campaign to raise funds for the construction of the university, it was befiting that the institution celebrates with them.

Mr Nkhoma said today the institution was staking its claim as part of the international family of universities, adding that it had contributed a lot to policy formulation and national development, especially through research, consultancies and human capital development, hence the need to celebrate the four decades of existence.

 He said the introduction of old age pension was a result of research from the University of Botswana.

“There is no office, workplace, industry or any other place you can think of in Botswana where you don’t find the University of Botswana graduates, thus making celebration of the 40^th anniversary relevant,” he said.

He said the university had also demonstrated that it could  respond to societal challenges, emphatically pointing at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, it developed some innovations and provided psychosocial support to those affected by or suffered from COVID-19.

He said the UB Legal, Psychology and Business clinics as well as the Career and Counselling Unit provided services to Batswana, noting that since its inception, the university had been championing sports development in Botswana.

He said the university, through its High-Performance Centre, had been providing training to various national teams including the Tokyo 2020 Olympic team.

He said the University of Botswana Faculty of Medicine’s contribution towards transforming healthcare delivery in Botswana remained paramount.

Over and above, he said as a faculty, it sit at the intersection of Botswana’s education and healthcare system.

He shared that before the faculty was established, government used to train medical students abroad, which was costly, adding such resulted in some students not returning home to serve the community because of greener pastures abroad.

“It was in 1995 when government then decided to establish a staged developmental school of medicine at the University of Botswana in association with other schools in South Africa and Australia. In August 2009, UB decided to have a full school of medicine with various medical programmes and a total enrolment of 36 students,” he said.

He noted that most of them were engaged in local healthcare clinics across the country, noting the school had graduated over 300 doctors, some of whom came from neighbouring countries such as Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa. 

He shared that other achievements that were worth celebrating included receiving international partners such as Rutgers, UPenn, Harvard and international donors for research projects.

Mr Nkhoma said the University of Botswana student population was made up of people from all corners of the globe representing a multicultural and diverse community, pursuing different academic and research programmes.

He said currently, the university boast a student population of close to 18 000 and close to 3 000 staff members, both academic and support staff more than 54 per cent of whom were academic staff holding PhD.

He said with an offering of 192 programmes, UB was Botswana’s premier and globally recognised institution of higher learning with eight faculties and a school of graduate studies.

He said from a graduate population of 267 in 1982, UB had cumulatively produced close to 84 000 graduates to date, adding that with its Maun branch, the Okavango Research Institute had a cumulative 40 Master of Philosophy (MPhil) and PhD since 2013 when it produced its first graduates. 

He said UB students constituted a diverse and multicultural community from around the globe living in residence halls in a culturally vibrant campus boasting facilities that included one of the largest libraries in Africa, an 8 000-seater stadium with an International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) accredited track, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, outdoor courts for tennis, volleyball, basketball, field hockey and handball, and a climate-controlled 5 000-seater multipurpose Campus Indoor Sports Centre.

UB was established in 1982 by an Act of Parliament, which was tabled by the then Minister of Education, the late Kebatlamang Morake.

Mr Nkhoma shared that UB was established to replace the University College of Botswana, which was parting ways with its Swazi counterpart under a partnership known as the University of Botswana and Swaziland (UBS).

UBS was hastily established in 1976 following an arbitrary action by the Lesotho government to nationalise the then Roma Campus of the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (UBLS).

When what came to be known, then as the ‘University Coup’ by the Lesotho government happened, Botswana government responded swiftly by launching a nationwide appeal – the Botswana University Campus Appeal (BUCA) with a target of R1 million within 12 months, Mr Nkhoma said.

Botswana’s founding President, Sir Seretse Khama, travelled the length and breadth of the country rallying people to contribute whatever they could in what came to be known as Motho le Motho Kgomo (one man, one beast) to raise funds for the construction of the university.

Dr Potlako Molefhe, who all along was an employee of Radio Botswana, was made coordinator with Peter Olsen, Boniface Masete, Chapson Butale and Lorraine Tapela as committee members.

The committee was placed under the Office of the President to cut the bureaucratic red tape. Through the President’s Administrative Secretary, Mr Phillip Steenkamp, BUCA enjoyed regular contact with President Khama.

BUCA turned out to be a resounding success as it exceeded the set target, he said. ENDs