29 Jan 2014

Botswana Qualification Authority (BQA) has sent a stern warning to training institutions.

The authority stated that at the end of the implementation of laws it would put all training institutions under its microscope to cross-check their credibility. BQA Establishment Teams project manager, Dr Andrew Molwane said this at the organisation’s consultative breakfast seminar in Francistown on January 28.

Giving an overview of BQA legislation, Dr Molwane explained that Botswana was in the process of transforming the education system in such a way that the quality of education would be based on outcomes with the graduates being marketable across the world.

Dr Molwane said it was imperative that training institutions should be monitored to ensure that the programmes that they offered and their moderation and assessments were done in line with the BQA developed structures aimed at producing competitive graduates.

He said BQA was in the process of establishing guidelines to be sent to all training institutions so that they would be aware of requirements of their existence as training institutions.

The guidelines would also help monitor the training institutions through a database and also be up to date with the programmes they were offering, more so that they were going to accredit programmes that were aligned with BQA guidelines and standards.

He also said BQA would also design the criteria of the curriculum to be used in the schools based on learning outcomes while at the same time there would be a monitoring and evaluation tool for teaching and learning standards.

This, he said, was done with the aim of having a link between all the stages of education system ranging from pre-school to primary until secondary and tertiary education.

Meanwhile, BQA acting chief executive officer, Mr Abel Modungwa, said when giving an update of the progress of the establishment of the project that for a long time, education in Botswana was not well coordinated.

Therefore, Mr Modungwa said, competitiveness was compromised to the extent that so much money was used in training students, only to have graduates with mismatch of skills as per requirements of the job market.

He said it was for such reasons that in 2009, cabinet approved the implementation of the national human resource strategy so that the education system could be taken through a transition, which will align all the stages of education so that they could be smooth transition from one stage to another.

He also said unlike in the past, the current changes were going to have the employers as the main stakeholder in need of the human resource asserts, taking part in the training process so that the issues of mismatch of skills could be stopped before so much is spent on graduates.

He added that such decisions came about as Botswana was moving away from the mineral-led economy to a human resource-based one.

The objectives of the seminar were to provide an update on the rationalisation programme and implications of the change on the accreditation status of the education and training providers.

It was also to create awareness of the mandate of BQA as well as to explain the importance for stakeholders’ participation in the current education and training reforms. ENDS