Boitekanelo College attains historic accreditation
Boitekanelo College has attained a historic Occupational Therapy accreditation from the World Federation of Occupational Therapy (WTOF). Thus, it becomes the first local higher institution of learning to achieve the milestone, as the institution also becomes the first local tertiary school to offer a Bachelor of Science Degree programme in Occupational Therapy.
Currently, Botswana has only a handful of occupational therapists servicing a large population of patients.
How did it happen?
In 2023 Boitekanelo College signed a Memorandum
of Understanding (MoU) with South Africa’s University of Cape Town (UCT). Through the MoU, the UCT has assumed a ‘Big Brother’ role and assist the local institution to develop the programme. Boitekanelo College founder and president, Tiroyaone Mampane,
told a press briefing this week that the UCT is assisting with developing programmes that are mainly focused on the disability and rehabilitation services. Mampane said the two institutions have developed speech, audiology, physio and recently occupational therapy programmes in Boitekanelo College.
What is occupational therapy?
According to the president of the Botswana Association of Occupational Therapists (BAOT), Misani Monthe, occupational therapy has been described as a branch of health care that helps people of all ages who have physical, sensory or cognitive problems. He further said occupational therapy can help clients and patients to regain independence in all areas of their lives. Occupational therapists help with barriers that affect a person’s emotional, social and physical needs. “There are different areas of occupational therapy; there is paediatrics all up to the genetics or the elderly. Take a child who was born with challenges or someone who is unable to develop the milestones as their age mates. “A child who is not able to sit, or to crawl or even walk at the right age, that is where occupational therapy comes in, in order to stimulate those milestones,” said Monthe.
What does the accreditation mean for Botswana? Boitekanelo College is to produce the first locally trained occupational therapists after attaining the accreditation from WTOF. This is an international body that oversees the profession of occupation therapy. WTOF further oversees the education and also it oversees how occupational therapists should be performing in terms of their roles and responsibilities in member countries.
The organisation also promotes quality services in occupational therapy. “Quality is something that we are very much concerned about as Batswana. “We are very keen that higher education providers are providing services of quality and also marketable. One thing I must emphasise about the programme is that once it has been accredited like this, it means that our graduates would be marketable not only locally but also internationally. So we felt that this is an important milestone if you look at the background in our country that some graduates complete their studies and struggle to get employed.
“So we feel that as an institution having this milestone where our programme is internationally recognised, it offers our graduates such an opportunity to look for jobs outside the country if they are not able to get the jobs within our borders. It gives them the licence to be able to look for jobs in the international market,” Mampane said.
The BAOT has also become a full member of the WTOF who is shaping the profession on the international space. Botswana as a country started offering occupational therapy and mainly at the Princess Marina Hospital and the Nyangagwe Referral Hospital.
According to Monthe, the country offers occupational therapy in district hospitals as well as the Sabrana Psychiatric Hospital. Monthe further said the country is in a desperate need for occupational therapist as there are only 39 in the country and mostly situated in the south.
“There is one in the Maun area, one in Sekgoma Memorial Hospital (Serowe) and three in Nyangagwe Referrral Hospital (Francistown). We have also got three in Sabrana and we have some in medical partners and parastatals like the mining environments.
“We are very thin on the ground and the Ministry of Health has started to realise that. The ministry at a certain point started to send students abroad to study occupational therapy. On the other end, it has always been difficult to import from outside,” Monthe said. He further revealed that in some cases one occupational therapist services a 200km distance health population.
Mampane said the accreditation would bring job opportunities at the institution as Boitekanelo College seeks an increase of six more educators in addition to the two in the occupational therapy programme. He said Boitekanelo College’s first enrollment for the programme was in 2023 and a total of 38 students stand in line to be the first ever cohort of locally trained Occupational Therapy graduates. The group is to complete their studies in 2027 and is to aid in the desperate need of occupational therapists in the country while there are job opportunities for the aspiring students in this area of study.
“The other important aspect is that as a country we are really lacking in terms of professionalism in this space of occupational therapy.
The government has said they are desperate, they need more because they want to increase their services in occupational therapy and because we do not have adequate number of occupational therapist the government has not been able to adequately provide these services,” Mampane said.
He further revealed that lack of access to occupational therapy education in the country’s tertiary schools has led to the scarcity of professionals in the field and Boitekanelo College anticipates an increase in the programme in the upcoming years.
Indigenous knowledge and skills taken aboard
Director of education at WTOF, Tecla Mlambo, revealed during the press briefing that local cultural practices and norms were taken into consideration when awarding Boitekanelo College the accreditation. She said as per the practice, applicants submit a report of both the modern and cultural practices in health. Boitekanelo College has aligned its Bachelor of Science Degree programme in Occupational Therapy with cultural practices such as thobega (stiffing of joints), amongst others.