New Era College maintains there are no anomalies

Baboki Kayawe | Monday March 23, 2015 15:35

To qualify for government sponsorship, as one of their criterions, applicants must have 36 points.

Director of Academic Affairs, Clement Didimalang, said in a media tour last Friday that NE has set its admission cut off points at 34 to promote access to higher education. 

Over 90 percent of the more than 3,000 students population is on government scholarships at the college. 

Elaborating on this decision Curriculum Coordinator, Augustine Utlwang, said the move was meant to cater for self-sponsored students, who fail to meet government’s stipulated 36 points.

“We have put it at 34 points because we are not only catering for government sponsored learners only,” he said. He said there is no anomaly in that they have lowered admission stakes for a mere 10 percent or less who happen to be self-sponsored learners.  Utlwang denied that the college had any students below the required 36 points on government sponsorship.  Moreover, he added that the 34 points they had set is meant for degree programmes that would roll out in the July/August 2015 intake.

Asked how the programmes are differentiated to ensure that New Era’s products are adequately skilled for both absorption into the job market and employment creation, Didimalang said the college has submitted a request to the Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA) to offer entrepreneurship to its learners.

While authorities acknowledge that graduate unemployment is at crisis level in the country, director of academic affairs, Didimalang told the media that this is a global concern.  “We are waiting for the BQA to approve our request because we want the engineers we are training to have self-employment skills,” he said.  On quality, the authorities have said though their programmes are offered elsewhere, needs assessment studies have shown that their courses are popular. Didimalang said that they are committed to quality to address market needs.

The college would soon launch Bachelor degree programmes in Electrical, Electronics and Telecommunications.  The college, which opened its doors to the public in 2009, has been offering franchise courses from the likes of City and Guilds.

Seven other home grown programmes, which will be offered at Advanced Diploma levels, have also been submitted to BQA, in response to what the college calls “the critically needed manpower at the artisan and technical levels.”

These programmes would be offered effective from July/August 2015. The transformation is meant to curb shortage of skills at artisan and technical level in the country.

To offer these programmes, the college has embarked on an expansion programme to cope with sustaining growth, said the authorities.