BAC engages 150 firms to facilitate students training

Lindiwe Mozola | Tuesday September 15, 2015 14:42

The majority of companies are in the hospitality industry. The BAC’s school of business and leisure offers degrees in international hospitality, tourism and saloon management. The companies absorb students into their systems and offer them industry training for few months before returning back to school.

Speaking here at the official launch of the school, academic director, Byron Brown said through the partnership, students gained the experience that would help them settle easily in the competitive hospitality industry after graduation.

He said the partnership was motivated by evidence that most graduates who joined the industry were not job ready. The degrees offered at the school are efforts to support Botswana’s economic diversification drive. “In addition, these degrees are tailor made in a way that will enable graduates to alternatively establish their businesses and create employment,” he said. Bruce Petty, general manager of Desert and Delta Safari Lodge  which is one of the 150 partner companies, said most students were impressive during industry training. The students also contributed ideas that helped his company operate effectively. Petty also said Desert and Delta Safari Lodge will, at the beginning of next year, sponsor four students annually for the next three years to take hospitality courses at the BAC school of business and leisure. “Tourism is also an engine of growth to the economy and without proper skills, the industry will under-perform as it faces competition in the global tourism space,” he said. “That is why we support professional training in the hospitality industry.”

The BAC school of business and leisure in Francistown has enrolled 300 students since its inception in 2013. The first batch of the students, which is made up of 144 students, will graduate next year.

The school operates at the premises of the Francistown College of Technical and Vocational Education.