BQA unlikely to meet its deadline
Innocent Selatlhwa | Friday May 5, 2017 14:55
The BQA was established to provide for and maintain the National Credit and Qualifications Framework. It was also to coordinate the education, training and skills development quality assurance system, from early childhood to tertiary level (lifelong learning).
The idea was to have all these institutions of learning accredited by December this year.
During a press briefing on Wednesday, the BQA legal advisor Kennedy Pheko shared the regulations with the media emphasising that the BQA will be strict with its regulations and shut down non-compliant Education and Training Providers (ETPs).
During the press briefing, the BQA chief executive officer (CEO) Abel Modungwa said though they are progressing, some institutions are yet to show any effort especially from the public sector. “We have done a lot in terms of dealing with applications from the previous regulations. So far only 12 private institutions have applied to be registered. From the public schools, there has not been any effort made,” he said.
Modungwa stated that they were not impressed with the pace of things and keep on pushing ETPs to comply with the regulations.
“On our side we are really pushing to meet our deadline. We have teams building capacity here at BQA and at individual institutions. We also hold weekly meetings with stakeholders including institutions, professional bodies as well as the Botswana National Union of Students and the National Student Representative Council,” he said.
He said another challenge in the transition is getting subject matter experts to facilitate accreditation of these learning programmes. Modungwa said in the past they got the experts from public institutions but will now have to look across the border as public institutions are also to be accredited.
Modungwa said their plea to have institutions at least forward their plans to enable them to start looking for experts to mitigate the delays has hit a snag.
A highly placed source has pronounced it impossible to have all institutions compliant by the year-end.
“The time frame set by the BQA is not practical as there is a lot of work to be done. Maybe had we separated and enforced it on private institutions, as they have been working with the BQA and know expectations. In the public schools it will be a challenge.
This starts from dozens of pre-primary schools, hundreds of primary, junior and senior schools as well as tertiary public institutions,” the source said.
The source said the BQA has no capacity to fulfill the target within a year and things were worsened by the fact that it is almost mid year and institutions are dragging their feet.
The source said this is likely to cause the minister to extend dates for public institutions, something which is likely to make private institutions go up in arms to have the same. Business Botswana education sector representative Golekanye Setume told the press briefing that as private tertiary institutions, they are taking the issue serious and that they would comply.
“We have 12 of our 17 members having started the process already, this goes to show that we are serious about this. We know the implications and continue mobilising others to push themselves even those who are not our members,” he said.
Setume who is also dean-Office of External Relations at Botho University said they wholly believe in the BQA approach as they believe it will increase the quality of education in the country.
Contacted for a comment on whether they would meet the deadline and what plans they have in place, Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology Minister Alfred Madigele could only say they are monitoring the situation closely. “We are monitoring the situation closely.
We still believe we can make it as we will start dealing with public ETPs soon,” Madigele said. He emphasised that no institution would be allowed to operate outside the regulations.