Botswana Student Union Body Nominated For Pan African Award
Staff Writer | Monday August 8, 2016 13:39
The Secretary General of the Botswana National Union of Students, Blessing Lechane says the nomination for the award is a result of the visit to Botswana by the All Africa Students Union Secretary General and his team in April this year where he made an assessment of the Botswana national union of students’ programmes, including their interventions during strikes in schools, their community outreach programmes, mass media interactions, among others.
According to the Secretary General, Botswana affiliated to the All Africa student Union this year, and will be making their maiden appearance at the summit. They are up against Ghana, and the Gambia in this award category, according to him.
Lechani says their nomination for the award has been greeted with support from local authorities. “ Even the President of the land, Rre Khama has wished us well in this award nomination; in fact we are due to have lunch with him ahead of our departure, we hope it materialises”, revealed Lechane.
He says the Ministry of Education has also come on board and bought them flight tickets for all the nine members of the party, while the Bots50 committee and the local FNB, and the Human resource Development Council(HRDC) have also donated some merchandise.
According to Lechane, the Botswana Qualifications Authority(BQA) officials will see them off at the airport as well as welcome them back. BQA is also supporting the travelling party with allowances, according to Lechane.
For their part the BQA said they were delighted to learn that Botswana students Union has been nominated for such an award.
BQA stakeholder relations manager Selolwana Koppenhaver added that BQA recognises building quality education, adding that it is a BQA requirement for training institutions to have properly functioning SRC’s that enjoy cordial relations with those institutions for timely resolution of students grievances.
“ We are very excited for them; as the BQA we also expect a report from their experience on how others in Africa do things differently, since no man is an island, they can only learn from their peers, and this summit of all the African students unions is the ideal forum to share ideas and appreciate students issues in the country as they learn how others respond to similar issues”, Koppenhaver added.