Gov�t considers alternative tertiary funding models
Baboki Kayawe | Tuesday October 11, 2016 14:43
Government could in the near future roll out cost-sharing measures as evidenced by the strictly regulated higher education financing (government) through a quota system in the past two academic years. Under the new sponsorship system, tertiary institutions are given a number of students government is able to fund based on market needs, unlike before when the former determined enrolment per programme.
The event, which attracted experts from tertiary financing bodies in Kenya and South Africa inter alia, looked critically into the area of cost-sharing as well as tightening recoveries from beneficiaries.
Opening the conference in the capital, the just-appointed minister, Dr Alfred Madigele said the inaugural Pitso was held in the backdrop of a massive increase in education enrolment, ever increasing costs as well as competing priorities coupled with dwindling financial resources.
In order for the tertiary education sub-sector to give impetus to the realisation of the Revised National Policy on Education of 1994 and Vision 2016 goals, among others, the Tertiary Education Policy (TEP) of 2008 and the National Human Resource Development Strategy (NHRDS, 2009) were developed.
“These two key policy documents emphasise the need to increase access, improve quality and address equity and relevance in tertiary education. In particular, the TEP sees tertiary education as a critical leverage for Botswana to transition from a resource-based to a knowledge based economy,” Madigele said.
Government’s decision to sponsor students to local private tertiary education institutions around 2003/2004 saw an increase of participation rates rise from 7.7% at the time to 19.9% in the academic period of 2015/2016. “While all this is desirable, it is not sustainable in view of other competing demands on government revenue over the past four years,” he said.
Government has been traditionally the sole sponsor of tertiary education, with the sponsorship evolving over time from a bursary to grant/loan schemes where beneficiaries were expected to contribute towards the cost of their training and through recovery. “Our recovery efforts have not been the best,” Madigele said.
“Financing tertiary education and the challenges it imposes on government has lately become a topical issue, and the search for better strategies for financing tertiary education has thus become a subject of wide discussions involving international organisations,” he added.