Mining firms tackle skills mismatch
Keikantse Lesemela | Monday April 7, 2014 11:57
The initiative is part of the Education and Training Sector Strategic Plan (ETSSP) established in 2012 to narrow the gap between qualifications and labour market requirements. This will ensure that education programmes are more closely aligned to future employment needs.
Speaking at the ETSSP workshop last week, Millard Tom, said they have reviewed five programmes including Heavy Plant Machinery, Electrical, Instrumentation and Maintenance Fittings. “We also carried out risk assessment and allocated coordinators on these fields who are experts in the industry,” said Tom, a programme coordinator.
The MoESD will provide teachers while the industry will offer trainers. The programme will be segmented into classroom teaching for three months, followed by a three-month workshop and industrial attachment for six months. The process will be repeated over four years.
Tom said that about 100 students have already been selected from the technical colleges to join the programme. “We have 36 from Botswana College of Engineering and Technology (BCET) and 64 from Francistown College of Technical and Vocational Education (FCTVE),” he said. Tom said there is high demand from these companies as each require 16 students and they do not have enough. “We are not going to reach the target because we have only 100 students qualified for this programme, therefore others will just have two students for each department,” Tom explained.
He said the mining industry is dominated by expatriates whose stay in Botswana is not guaranteed. Meanwhile, the technical, vocational education and training in Botswana has been described as rife with deficits, has no defined pathways, is perceived negatively, is poorly aligned with labour market demands and does not contribute towards social economic development needs as it should.
During the signing of an MoU last year with the MOESD, the Botswana Chamber of Mines (BCM) chief executive officer, Charles Siwawa, said with more mines set to open in the next five years, there is need to train more citizens in mining disciplines. Siwawa said vocational technical institutions are not producing mining industry-ready graduates and this leads to re-training.