The Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) is the new statutory body that has replaced the Tertiary Education Council. Needing to strengthen the system level capacity of the Education and Skills Development sector, Government undertook two policy reviews of the education and skills development system mainly through the formulation of the Tertiary Education Policy and undertaking a formulation study for the National Human Resource Development Strategy (NHRDS).
The key structural findings were that Human Resource Development was subsumed into other focus areas of each line ministry and supported by a number of different agencies reporting to a different ministry. Such a fragmented approach made policy co-ordination extremely difficult and had led to inequitable and inappropriate resource allocation. The lack of a monitoring and evaluation system, performance indicators and an integrated data capability to manage human resource development was another symptom of the lack of co-ordination.
To respond to these challenges the Tertiary Education Policy (Government White Paper no.37) which was approved by the National Assembly in April 2008 set out a new institutional framework for the education and skills development sector centred around the establishment of a Human Resource Development Council and a National Credit and Qualifications Authority. Hence on 21st January 2009, His Excellency the President, on the advice of Cabinet, approved the National Human Resource Development Strategy (NHRDS)ÔÇôRealising our Potentials and issued a cabinet directive for its immediate implementation.
Hence the Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) is a single integrated statutory body through the transformation of the Tertiary Education Council (TEC). In accordance with the recommendation of the NHRDS, the HRDC was to be formed as a functionally integrated parastatal with a mandate for national and sector-based HRD planning, tertiary education and work place institutional planning and funding.
Consequentially, this led to the dissolution of TEC through a repeal of the Tertiary Education Act of 1999. Thus on November 8th 2013 after the passing and commencement of the Act, the Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) assumed full statutory powers. By December 2014 the HRDC had completed the start-up preparatory phase which included organisational design and due diligence, governance, staffing, policies, processes, systems and operations to execute its mandate as per the Act.
As referenced in the Key Note Policy Paper for NDP11 (MFDP July 2014) and subsequently endorsed by His Excellency in the 2014 State of the Nation Address (Parliament November 12th 2014) “the establishment of the Human Resource Development Council and the Botswana Qualifications Authority is a positive development as it assists in the streamlining of education and skills development in the country”.
