12 Jun 2025

Minister of Higher Education, Mr Prince Maele says there is need to establish a body that will spearhead transformation of the technical and vocational education and training (TVET).

Addressing a press conference in Gaborone on yesterday, Minister Maele, who recently undertook benchmarking visits to Romania, Germany and Ghana, said TVET was pivotal in addressing the country’s challenges among them skills mismatch and unemployment. He said the authority, similar to what was in place in Ghana, would look into accreditation of courses and institutions, standardisation of curriculum and monitoring and evaluation of courses so that the authority might rein in unaccredited institutions.

Minister Maele further said a TVET qualifications framework would ensure institutions and courses were accredited. The minister revealed that there were plans to change brigades to vocational training centres to remove the stigma that was attached to brigades. 

Minister Maele said they wanted to introduce dual TVET system, which would mean partnering with industries as witnessed in Romania during benchmarking mission. He said collaborating with industries would mean that the industry partnered with equipped the institutions to produce industry ready graduates.

He also said by so doing, the industry would absorb graduates immediately after completion of studies as the industry knew their capabilities, thereby creating employment. He further said it was important to define the pathways and make them dual a move from the current arrangement where there was one pathway which was theoretical. Minister Maele said they had to cluster brigades to concentrate on particular skills to create centres of excellence rather than have the same skills across the country.

“Our problem is that our resources are spread across and at the end of the day we become thin on the ground,” he said.

He said they also needed to concentrate on training and retooling trainers as there was a lot needed to develop them such as training in the use of tools such as AI, ICT and others. The ministry, he said, was also looking into increasing allowances from P300 to P1 500 or P1 900 because some centres were also based in towns and cities, where the cost of living was higher. He said TVET could produce learners who could be entrepreneurs, thereby transforming the economy to being private sector led and curbing youth unemployment. ENDS