Youth employment not our sole responsibility – Mokgethi
Mompati Tlhankane | Thursday November 17, 2022 14:51
The minister was responding to a question from the Kanye North legislator Thapelo Letsholo who had asked the minister to appraise Parliament on youth unemployment in Botswana and government efforts towards reducing it. “The youth cohort contributes the majority (approximately 60%) of our population and government has over the years come up with targeted interventions to address their economic plight. The Reset Agenda as championed by President Mokgweetsi Masisi, is rallying all sectors of the economy to leave no one behind. As government institutions elsewhere are continuing to empower young people through initiatives such as entrepreneurship, my ministry provides programmes that help young people to promote workplace skills and enhance employability chances,” she highlighted.
Asked about the effectiveness of the Internship Programme, the minister said the programme is effective in that it is an enabler of a smooth transition from school to work. Mokgethi also said it helps the interns to gain skills that can be useful to them when they later join the work place. “It also helps to teach them the culture and ethics of the work place. Structured internship and apprenticeship training equip learners with practical skills and expose them to the world of work through attachments, experiential learning, work integrated learning. The Internship Programme provides the youth with the opportunity to gain work exposure and experience, build occupational competences, deepen technical skills that were imparted during education and improve graduates’ readiness to work,” she revealed. Over the years the Internship Programme has received a lot of criticism because the same interns join a cohort of long-term unemployed graduates once the two-year internship is over. The government has not been able to absorb the interns since outgoing interns are simply replaced with fresh graduates from educational institutions.
Commenting on the issue, Francistown West Member of Parliament Ignatius Moswaane said many of the people who have benefited from the internship are poor and it is like they have never gone through the programme. He asked the minister to explain what happens to the interns who are off loaded by the system after two years. In her defense Mokgethi said people should understand that the internship is a two-year programme and can never be permanent. In terms of an apprenticeship system, the minister said the system would complement both the educational and Internship Programme in Botswana in that apprenticeship training is a combination of “on-the-job training” and “school-based education”.
“Let me indicate that government does not necessarily have to incentivise companies to participate and contribute to national development. This is simply because the benefits accrued from an apprenticeship system are symbiotic, whereby both the employer and the employee benefit from the programme”, she said.