New CEO vows to clean BQA mess
Botswana Qualifications Authority ( BQA) Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Botsalano Mosimakoko has acknowledged that there has been a mess at the authority which has hindered it for years from delivering on its mandate.
Dr. Mosimakoko said there has been a backlog of applications for accreditation of programmes by institutions, which she discovered within a month in office. Dr. Mosimakoko indicated that change is not easy but she believes that they are on the right track.
She explained that the authority wanted to treat the backlog as a project but this was not possible due to lack of funds.
“We are currently at 74 percent in dealing with the backlog. We are done with the 2017 applications and are halfway through with 2018. By the end of this academic year, we will be at 80 percent plus in dealing with the backlog,” the BQA leader said.
She indicated that BQA is creditbased, which was not the case, with BOTA and TEC. Dr. Mosimakoko revealed that by the 2nd of December 2021, the intention is that the legacy programmes from TEC and BOTA will come to an end.
She agreed that a lot of students are not absorbed by the market due to the qualifications they currently possess. Dr. Mosimakoko said her institution together with other stakeholders, has done a tracer study to find out where
the students are and what they have been doing. She also acknowledged that due to some anomalies at the authority this resulted in law enforcement agencies such as Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime ( DCEC), Directorate of Intelligence and Security ( DIS) and Ombudsman camping at their offices. “There is a forensic report of 2017/ 18 which showed some anomalies on how things were handled and done. We now have an audit plan
in place based on the reports that were conducted that show that things are not well. “Things might be blurry but as you ask questions and get deep into the issues that is when you will find out that certain things were not done correctly and that is what I have been doing as the leader. We now have measures in place to correct things,” Dr. Mosimakoko told the Parliamentary Committee on Statutory Bodies and State Enterprises this week. She revealed that there was also use of some expert by the authority but it was discovered that some of them were not qualified. According to Dr. Mosimakoko, the authority further discovered that there were people who were being paid but did not have agreement or contract with BQA to offer expert services. “Some of these people we did not know and some were not even qualified. We discovered this anomaly as we were probing. That process has since been halted. “Even those that we paid last year, we had to dig deep to find out if they qualify and are suitable to be used by the authority to offer expert services. “We want people with Masters Degrees and PhDs to engage when dealing with our programmes. We want to have credible institutions that can compete worldwide,” she explained. She told the committee that even in terms of governance things are not all well as she currently has people in acting positions. She said this is because the authority had to undertake some disciplinary processes against some of the officials because of what was discovered to have not been done correctly. “Even with our Board, we are still limping as we do not have a full Board but we are hopeful that soon it will be fully constituted,” she added.
The committee’s Chairman Dr. Never Tshabang said what is happening at the authority is worrisome. He said the system is porous as having been pointed out by the law enforcement agencies. He said there is too much corruption as officials are taking bribes, adding that the country put trust on Dr. Mosimakoko to clean the mess.
“Let us have those gaps closed. We have students with qualifications not recognised by the industry. We do not want mass education we want credible and quality education. We have value for money and BQA has to ensure that happens. “Professional wrangling is not putting you in proper space of professionalism. Build a seamless education system,” Dr. Tshabang, who is also Member of Parliament for Nkange, said.