She added that the task force has finished its countrywide tour. It was divided into three groups, which covered mainly the district council and the sub-district council areas. However she said that this does not mean that places that it did not visit could not be selected for building the university.
She said that the important things they are looking at are the programmes that will be offered at the university and the number of students who will be enrolled. Though many places have been mentioned regarding the ideal location for the university, Mpuchane said that the location is not the most important thing in their agenda, as they first have to know what the university will be teaching.
She said that in all the places they visited, they held separate meetings with the general public in Kgotlas and with development committees for the districts, villages and urban areas.
She said that the issues they discussed with the development committees included infrastructure.
“Infrastructure involves all kind of issues including, water, land, utilities, hospitals and good communication,” Mpuchane said.
She added that all these determine the ideal location for the university rather than building it in a place where there are no infrastructure.
She said they are currently preparing a report on all the places they visited so that it can be discussed in a meeting on Monday when all the three groups meet.
She said that a lot of people were keen on discussing the location as opposed to the programmes that should be offered. But she was impressed with how Batswana want to help the government as most people offered to donate things like livestock.
Since the most important issues in deciding to build a university are the programmes that will be offered, they have worked with the Department of Student Placement and Welfare in the Ministry of Education and many private companies who have given them a list of students they have sent to study different programmes abroad. This she said will help them draw up programmes for the second university so that the government will not spend more money sending students abroad.
Though more emphasis for the university has been on Science and Technology, this does not mean that it will not teach other programmes. She said that staff development is one of the most important issues that the second university will be looking at so that locals also have the opportunity to teach and reach the percentage that will be set for them in different faculties.
The three groups of the Task committee will soon be visiting universities in the United Kingdom, Malysia, South Africa and Zimbabwe so that they can see how they run the programmes that the second university will be offering.
She said that they would also be looking at how these universities fund their programmes and how they run them.
