TEC stresses importance of higher education

CHANDAPIWA BAPUTAKI
Staff Writer | Friday November 16, 2007 00:00

Speaking at a TEC workshop to prepare for the 10th National Development Plan (NDP 10), Patrick Molutsi said there are still people who are confused about what access to higher education means. 'These are the people who normally ask why we continue to churn out graduates if we cannot give them jobs. We need to teach these people that it is better to give students tools of empowerment rather than leaving them to stay at home doing nothing,' Molutsi said.

He indicated that education empowers people to fend for themselves. 'Would these people who ask why we still churn out graduates would rather see these children staying home and suffering abject poverty? Knowledge empowerment is a way of poverty alleviation in society,' Molutsi said.

He said that focus on quality assurance is a critical new regime for countries that want to increase competitiveness. He said the strategy for importing highly skilled labour is very costly. 'While government is still taking time processing the work permits for people, they may end up finding that those people have moved to other jobs elsewhere and money would have been misused in such cases. Then why not produce our local skilled labour?,' Molutsi quizzed.

He explained that another challenge is the persistent poverty where wealth is concentrated in government while citizens are poor. He said that the planning process for NDP 10 will be conceived in the context of global and national demands and the need to enhance Botswana's competitiveness. Other considerations are the needs of a knowledge society, high social demands and rising expectations of stakeholders for higher quality tertiary education as well as the need to improve Botswana's research and innovative capacity and the national agenda for the transformation as conceptualised in Vision 2016.

He stated that planning for NDP 10 requires a new approach that seeks to ensure that Botswana's tertiary education system will have a clear and integrated direction.