Boitekanelo Graduates Encouraged To Make Use Of Their Skills
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Monday September 25, 2017 16:24
Over 400 students from certificate, diploma and degree courses graduated. The ceremony was held under the theme ‘Building a strong healthcare service: A healthy legacy.’ Speaking at the college’s graduation ceremony held at the college on Friday, Makgalemele pointed out that even though the country and the region at large needed the skills they acquired during their training, it did not translate to automatic employment. He explained that from the months they left college, most of them have asked themselves if having a qualification meant staying at home.
“Some of you may have already taken a step; whether it is an internship, volunteering, a full-time job, or even taking up employment that is not relevant to your qualifications. The big thing about college is learning about yourselves, and many of you will leave your majors with a vague idea of the job they would like to get or business they would like to start. My encouragement to you is that you will never be truly successful in life until you work hard and give beyond yourself,” he said. He noted that people learn from experiences of other people of the world who started as nothing and became icons. Makgalemele gave an example of Steve Jobs of Apple fame, who had a difficult beginning after being kicked out of a company he co-founded.
“He came back and re-defined the mobile space with iPhone. One thing Jobs never did was to settle for less. He lived life on his own terms and was awarded for it by being dubbed one of the most revolutionary voices in technology of our time,” he said. The assistant Minister also gave an example of President Barack Obama’s own upbringing and how he was never expected to make it as far as he did. He explained that when one was passionate about something one could accomplish almost anything.
He encouraged them to start their own projects through government schemes such as youth development fund.
The college’s principal Isabell Magetse thanked the graduates for making the day successful especially on its 10th anniversary. “We are celebrating 10 years since installation. Since we opened, our college has a number of achievements to celebrate.
The state-of-the-art infrastructure has improved as we have built our own college that has infrastructure comparative to international standards. We also have over 300 employees that over 90% are Batswana,” he said. He added that they had a mix of students from neighbouring countries and that the college had footprints in Swaziland and other countries. Magetse explained that their curriculum was developed closely with their stakeholders. “Our students are attached to government hospitals.
The way we developed our curriculum, we prepared them for organisational behaviour. We also have workshops for our final year students where we offer them entrepreneurial skills so that they can establish their own businesses,” he said.