09 Jul 2025

Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA) has re-engineered its approach to the processing of applications and delegated some decision-making functions to management.

The Minister of Higher Education, Mr Prince Maele told Parliament yesterday that this was in an endeavour to close legislative gaps and improve turnaround times in processing applications. He noted that prior to that, the BQA experienced legislative gaps, which often led to non-compliance by the education and training providers (ETPs) as well as lengthy turnaround times in processing applications.

Subsequently, he said they delegated management to approve Certificate to Degree programmes while the board was tasked with approving Masters to PhD programmes, alongside registration and accreditation of institutions. He noted that since the Board had not been operational, they had experienced a negative impact on the good progress BQA had been making.

Mr Maele noted that the last approval process engaged the board, which represented a group of subject matter experts as well as professionals in various fields. He said in the period under review, the BQA Board last met on June 24, 2024 to consider applications for registration of qualifications and accreditation of learning programmes and 51 applications were considered at that sitting.

The minister said from the total considered, 32 were approved for both registration and renewal of registration for qualifications on the National Credit and Qualifications Framework (NCQF), while 18 were approved for accreditation of learning programmes and one for relocation of site, which was rejected. Nonetheless, he noted that as of June 27, the Board had approved 97 out of a total of 113 qualifications and accredited 76 out of 96 learning programmes.

He said out of the 35 learning programmes submitted from the University of Botswana (UB) on or before June 2024 and 13 were awaiting consideration and approval by the Board, nine awaiting evidence of endorsement by the relevant professional bodies since they were for regulated professions, adding that the remaining 13 applications were still being evaluated by the BQA.

Additionally, the minister said to date, 184 out 215 applications for learning programmes at UB were approved by the Board on June 27.  He said of the 31 pending, 16 were awaiting endorsement and 15 were to be approved in the next Board sitting.

The minister was responding to a question by MP for Maun West, Mr Caterpillar Hikuama, who had asked about the state of the BQA and its operational efficiency and challenges. He had further requested the minister to state when last the BQA Board met to approve programmes from tertiary institutions in Botswana, as well as the number of UB programmes that were submitted on or before June 24 that were still pending evaluation and approval by the BQA. ENDS