Swartland was addressing a business breakfast meeting held at Cresta Lodge in Gaborone last Friday. He said there have been many complaints from the private sector about the quality of graduates churned out by local private and public institutions. He expressed concern that private companies complain that they have to spend more money retraining the students. The meeting was expected to share with the private sector key government policies and strategies on tertiary education and skills development reforms, to present areas where private sector input is required and identify opportunities for private sector investment.
When giving the keynote address, TEC executive secretary, Patrick Molutsi said they have always wondered why the private sector is 'hands-off' when it comes to training students in Botswana, while their branches in other countries like South Africa and overseas were 'hands-on'. He said in the past two years government has introduced the TEC Policy and the Human Resource Development Strategy to reform the tertiary education and skills, to accelerate human resource development, to match skills training and education supply with labour market demands and to address major inadequacies in quality and relevance in the skills and education.
