04 Sep 2023

Botswana is negotiating with the Australian government to cease visa requirements for Batswana wishing to do different activities in Australia.

These, Botswana’s High Commissioner to Australia, Ms Dorcas Makgato said included among others, the requisite for Batswana to take English proficiency at a fee, which she said was unnecessary because English was already an official language in Botswana ‘as we are part of the Commonwealth and we borrow from the practices of our association’.

She said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was also concerned about visa reciprocity in the sense that Australians were allowed in Botswana without any visa requirements. While reflecting on her assignment and assumption of duty in Australia, she stated that in 2020, she was not able to engage fruitfully owing to the advent of COVID-19. However, she said, since the end of COVID-19 restrictions, she had had meaningful catch-up to achieve some of the assignments.

She said Australia had been of great assistance to Botswana when the country estabilished the schools of medicine as well as science and technology, and when the old Botswana College of Agriculture was converted to a university of agriculture. 

Ms Makgato explained that since the establishment of these training institutions, the number of Botswana students studying in Australia had gone down.

“Those that are here are those that are on Australian scholarships,” she said. ends