'Is Botswana ready for the hard work in agriculture sector?'

BABOKI KAYAWE
Staff Writer | Friday August 30, 2013 00:00

While he lauded the efforts by the government of Botswana towards education, he expressed doubts as to whether the citizenry was ready to sweat and have its hands soiled, as the agriculture sector requires hard work. In addition, Ito, who was part of the Japanese high level delegation to this country that visited the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) at its temporary base in Oodi yesterday urged universities to have a rewarding partnership with industries. He also expressed concern at the level of brain drain and urged government to tighten its employment creation efforts so that young graduates educated elsewhere can come back to disseminate their acquired knowledge here.

At the fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), a total of US$6.5 billion was channelled towards the acceleration of infrastructure development.This includes training 30,000 African people in industrial development, improving the learning environment for 20 million children through mathematics, science education and primary school management.  The other aspect of this initiative is to increase agricultural production and productivity, especially for rice cultivation, and to promote a 'farming as business' approach for 50,000 small farmers. 'I hope that those trained will come back to serve here and extend the knowledge to benefit their countries,' he said. Five Japanese Members of Parliament visited Botswana recently, as a follow-up to TICAD held in Japan in June this year. 

The MPs were part of the Japan-African Union Parliamentary League of Friendship, a group of Japanese parliamentarians promoting cooperation between Japan and AU countries.  The delegation, led by Asahiko Mihara of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), included Kenji Kosaka, Norio Mitsuya, Daishiro Yamagiwa and Ito. Meanwhile, the new BIUST Vice Chancellor, Professor Hilary Inyang has said African states should avoid running their universities like government institutions in order for them to flourish in the field of research. In an interview with Mmegi after hosting the Japanese delegation, Inyang said too much political interference hindered continental growth of institutions; turning them into 'just another university' that could not utilise research to bring about industrial transformations. Inyang, who has been in this position for only a month after leaving the University of North Carolina, said for any part of the world to have sustainable development, there was need for research.  'Africa is doing bad in that regard (research) compared with the rest of the world,' he said. According to him, African states could learn from the Japanese's culture of determination in science and technology, which has so far enabled them to catch up with the US and even surpassed them in industrial production. His institution through the establishment of regional extension centres, he said, would curb this deficiency in research. This will be tailored such that all sectors benefit, and would be implemented within a year and a half.

'Priority will be given in accordance with the population concentration and resources found in the different districts,' he said. Akita University and BIUST have been collaborating since 2010, which Inyang said would be useful in implementation of the regional extension centres. Agriculture, mining, science and technology and meteorology are areas of possible collaboration. Currently two BIUST students have been offered scholarships at Akita in mining engineering and geology.