16 Oct 2025

All graduates must understand that the digital era is their stage, said Minister of Higher Education, Mr Prince Maele, to the University of Botswana’s (UB) 2025 graduating cohort.

Delivering the keynote address at this year’s graduation ceremony held at the UB Indoor Sports Centre on October 16, Mr Maele hailed the graduates as a generation poised to reimagine Botswana’s future in the digital age. He described them as the youth who would lead the country from dependence to self-reliance and from consumption to innovation.

Mr Maele referenced this year’s theme titled, Empowering Futures: Advancing Human Dignity In The Digital era, highlighting that education should be seen as a moral and social responsibility to uphold human dignity. Furthermore, he said that empowerment must always uphold human rights.

He cautioned that although the digital era presented many benefits to reap, it also hauled in new risks such as privacy violation, misinformation.

“Our embrace of new technology must always be guided by ethical responsibility,” he said.

He urged graduates to embrace entrepreneurship, adding earnestly, “Position yourselves not just to take jobs, but to create them.”

Mr Maele further stressed that under the current economic strain, natural resources alone, such as diamonds, were not sufficient to sustain the nation.

He reminded the audience that innovation, talent and resilience of citizens will in the end play a crucial role in securing Botswana’s future.

He assured graduates that government continued to make significant investments in education, with over P3 billion allocated towards tertiary education financing for the 2025/2026 financial year, a reflection, he said, of government’s belief in education as a tool to empower industries, lives and shape Botswana’s destiny. He affirmed his belief in human capital as Botswana’s new diamond.

For his part, UB Vice Chancellor, Professor David Norris, commended UB for its recent improvement in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, an achievement he said reflected the collective effort of the UB community towards excellence and service, as well as the institution’s growing international reputation.

He noted that the university’s quality of research has improved by 400 per cent over the past seven years, while its Innovation Centre, with several products ready for commercialisation, continued to expand steadily. He reaffirmed UB’s commitment to making meaningful contributions to sustainable development both locally and globally.

A total of 3 539 graduates were honoured this year, including 22 Doctoral (PhD) recipients, 500 Master of Philosophy and Master’s degree graduates, 2 807 undergraduate degree recipients, and 218 diploma and certificate holders.

A total of 198 undergraduate students graduated with first-class honours, while significant increases were recorded in doctoral and master’s degrees compared to the previous year. ENDS