After many months of anxiously waiting for the report by a taskforce appointed by the Minister of Education on the future of the Botswana International University of Science and Technology, the nation can somewhat sigh with relief in the knowledge that experts have come to the conclusion that the university is an imperative that cannot be postponed any further.
That said, the ultimate decision on whether the university is built or not will be government’s to make.
It has always been the view of this paper that the second university’s imperative is now.
Postponing it, for whatever reason, will mean that somewhere at a later stage the nation will have, once again, to confront the uncomfortable truth that we needed it.
By which time it would be much costlier than it currently is.
As much as we call for the construction of the university, we cannot run away from the economic realities that we face today.
Botswana, like the rest of the world, is still to recover from the effects of a debilitating economic downturn.
This has meant that government no longer has the amount or the kind of resources that not so long ago were taken for granted.
We are pleased to note that the taskforce has recognized this reality, but then went further to advise Government on possible solutions aimed at circumventing the hard realities that we face as a nation.
Not for the first time we find ourselves calling on Government to leave no stone unturned in its pursuits of ensuring that the country’s second university does not fail.
History will judge us unkindly if today’s generation of leaders fails to rise to the occasion when called upon to do so by way of establishing a long lasting piece of infrastructure that is likely to benefit many generations to come.
There is no emphasizing just what a mammoth and daunting task the envisaged infrastructure is.
We want to recognize the Minister of Education for having adopted a sober minded approach as to allow independent and detached experts to offer her and Government advice when, at one point, it seemed like Government had already reached a decision to abandon or, at the very least, significantly scale down the project.
The input of the experts will go a long way in guiding the Government with regard to what options are available given the increasingly difficult economic terrain that we live in.
It is very important to acknowledge that while the already existing institutions have done a lot in as far as meeting the country’s human resource needs, going forward it will not be easy to just continue with such same institutions.
Circumstances have changed so vastly that unless we position ourselves as early as now, the gap that exists between the industrial needs and what the schools produce can only grow more glaring.
That is the reality that thankfully has been recognized by the taskforce.
“The industry stakeholders indicated that even though the current UB engineering graduates are academically sound, they have very little exposure to research and hands-on training. Thus, they need a longer period on on-the-job training when they enter the industry. The shortage of manpower skills in terms of actual numbers were cited in metallurgy, mining engineering etc,” reads the taskforce’s report in part.
More importantly, the taskforce has raised the growing need and competition of technical skills, especially engineers.
The competition is expected to reach fever pitch in the next few years.
Only those countries that position themselves have any chance of withstanding the onslaught from the scramble for engineers that is expected in the not so distant future.
“”The Review Committee was alerted to the fact that the continent, in particular South Africa, is about to enter into a phase of a serious shortage of engineers. The institute of Engineers in Botswana revealed that ESKOM was currently on a campaign targeting to recruit 300 engineers. Three points are of significance to the Committee from this. First, an exodus of the currently available skills in Botswana may occur, thereby jeorpardising the country’s engineering capacity. Therefore, Botswana needs to train more engineers to fill the gap that might result from this. Second, the increase in demand for these skills means that young Batswana with requisite skills may still get employed even if the internal market for these skills was to get saturated. Third, with a proper marketing strategy, there might be a possibility for South Africa to register its students into the BIUST programme. All these points have led the Review Committee to concur with the TEC Rationalisation report that indicated that even with UB expansion in science and engineering, Botswana still needs to train more manpower with skills in science, engineering and technology.”
