Norris Vows To Revive UB
Innocent Selatlhwa | Monday February 12, 2018 16:29
The institution has seen many challenges in the recent past with less number of students enrolling in the institution and staff members leaving. There were also issues of lack of funds.
Norris said they are going to take advantage of partnerships they have with leading world universities to improve as an institution.
“Young people are extremely innovative and have great ideas and they need a platform to excel. The creative minds that we have, we should be able to nurture.
We have special committees, we have agreements with universities such as Harvard and we are going to take advantage of these agreements to build this institution. The goodwill for this institution is massive,” Norris said.
He added they would have exchange programmes with professors from the universities coming to Botswana and vice versa. He also said they would emphasise on life-long learning and have assembled a team of staff members from different departments to work on these.
On the lowering number of student admission to the university, Norris said they needed to be more attractive in order for them to get more students.
“Our enrolment has dropped from 15,000 in the past to 12, 000. We need to offer exciting programmes.
We will also review our existing programmes and make them exciting. We need to be sure to give our students a great learning experience,” he said.
On revenue generation for the university, Norris said in addition to their sporting facilities and conference centre, they have set up a task team to develop an enterprise strategy that would enable the institution to support itself.
Norris said he would also consult with his principals on the issue of salary disparities.
“I am not aware that our salaries are lower than those of other government-owned institutions. One would assume BIUST in Palapye could try offer more to be able to attract staff as it is in a rural area with not so many facilities,” he said.