In bid to fill the shortage of teachers in various schools in Seychelles, Botswana will send a group of teachers to the Indian Ocean Island this December. The agreement follows a meeting held betweenMinister of Education and Skills Development of Botswana, Unity Dow and the Vice President of Seychelles Danny Faure recently. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the annual SADC’s 35th summit held on August 17-18 in Gaborone, Botswana, where Vice President Faure was representing President James Michel.
Botswana is reported to have stopped intakes at teacher training colleges, because of the saturation in the market. This has resulted in numerous graduate teachers being left jobless. On the other hand, the authorities in Botswana have welcomed the landmark deal, emphasizing that the University of Botswana has the capacity to take in more students from Seychelles.
Botswana currently has a surplus of teachers and this deal will likely be a relief. According to the details of the deal, students will be placed at the University of Botswana, and in return the Seychelles would be willing to consider employing teachers from Botswana. This will allow a win-win situation for both parties to the agreement. The first group of teachers from Botswana is expected to arrive in the Seychelles in December this year (2015), and the group of Seychellois teachers are expected to start their studies in Botswana in January 2016.
Seychelles is currently experiencing a backlog of teachers who are waiting to complete their advance studies in various fields of teaching. It is reported that there are 20 Seychellois already following first degree courses at the University of Botswana in various disciplines such as Mathematics, English and Social Sciences.
However, the agreement on the exchange progamme still needs to be formalised with the signature of a memorandum of understanding in the coming months. Seychelles and Botswana use English as a medium of instruction and have for the past few years had close cooperation in the education sector with a number of Seychellois students being trained in Botswana.
