Vocational Education is in a mess
BG Staffer Nicholas Mokwena’s
Strewn across the country are aesthetically good looking buildings, purportedly erected to churn out artisans, technicians, mechanics, fashionistas, designers, multimedia, carpenters, bricklayers, electricians, the list goes on; the gist of the story is that they are just buildings that remain underutilised. The vocational education or at least, the dream for one, has collapsed. Despite the seemingly dire situation, ranging from unaccredited courses to outdated curriculum, if any; the ministries concerned still find no reason to respond to questionnaire for over a month now.
The hype and public hopes that were raised by government over the revamping of the vocational education to make it attractive to Batswana and realign it to industry needs, remains a pie in the sky as nothing has come out of it, Botswana Guardian investigations have revealed.
The current administration has in 2018, ahead of the 2019 general election also made this one of its top priorities, only for advocacy for the prioritising on vocational education to die a natural death. Botswana Guardian has established that central to the failure for vocational education to achieve its intended purposes or at least to reach level of progress, is the failure to come up with a suitable curriculum.
Government has indicated that it is working on new programmes that will ensure vocational education is attractive to students and graduates are industry- ready to close the gap on skills mismatch. Thousands of learners were admitted and told to report for classes early November 2018, however, when they reported, they were returned and told to report back in early January 2019. Since they reported for classes in January 2019, the majority of them have never been taught because there are no programmes and no lecturers.
Sources have revealed that corruption, nepotism and favouritism for promotions at Ministries of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology ( MoTE), and that of Employment, Labour Productivity and Skills Development are some of the hindrances for progress in the development of the curriculum for both technical colleges and brigades.
Programmes offered at the various vocational institutions ranging from Certificate to Diploma are Electrics and Electronic Engineering, Borehole mechanic, Certificate in Construction, Certificate in Motor Vehicle Engineering, Bricklaying and Plastering ( NCC), Business Studies, BTEP certificate in Clothing, Design and Textile, BTEP Advanced Certificate in Multimedia, Furniture and Cabin making, Certificate in Plant Engineering, Certificate Refrigeration and Air Conditioning and Certificate in Science Laboratory Technology, among others.
Institutions that fall under MoTE are the Diploma courses offering institutions, namely Gaborone Technical College, Francistown College of Technical and Vocational Education, Oodi College of Applied Arts and Technology, and Botswana College of Engineering and Technology. Brigades and Vocational Technical Colleges that offer certificate courses belong under the Ministry of Employment, Labour Productivity and Skills Development.
It has since emerged that due to unavailability of approved programmes, all that is happening at these institutions is just window dressing. It is alleged that if at all there is a curriculum that has been developed, it is gathering dust at the ministries with no action being taken by those tasked with the mandate due to internal squabbles at management level by the officials.
“Last year they did nothing with regards to the issue of the curriculum. Now they are busy floating tenders for equipment and vacancies for lecturers, while there is nothing on the ground. Curriculum has to be developed, approved and there has to be validation. In Botswana that is not happening and the industry is shut out and not taken on board as is the case with other countries. All the curriculums that have been in place, their programmes have expired so they cannot be taught,” sources at the two ministries revealed. S ources have stated that there is too much rot at MoTE, indicating that in most of the technical colleges students are only doing short courses from three weeks to six months.
Botswana Guardian has uncovered that the technical colleges are operating below their set capacities. For instance, Gaborone Technical College is estimated to be sitting at 3 500 against the capacity of 15 000. This is one of the institutions that are operating below capacity, with Oodi College of Applied Arts and Francistown College of Technical and Vocational Education being the worst at zero capacity. Palapye, Selibe Phikwe and Jwaneng Technical colleges which have been moved to the Ministry of Labour as they offer certificate courses are also at dire state. These colleges were expected, when fully functional, to feed into GTC.
The worrying trend is that government has been buying equipment to be used at the institutions, while programmes are not ready, which according to experts, will defeat the whole purpose as machinery should be procured based on the structure of the programmes.
In 2020, the Ministry of Employment, Labour Productivity and Skills Development floated tenders for equipment with the second publication of the tenders made in the Government Gazette of August 2020. Closing date for submission for bidders was August 21st 2020. The Ministerial Tender Committee published tenders for Supply, Delivery, Installation and Commissioning of Equipment - for various courses in the Department of Skills Development Institutions. This was alleged to be a headache for the government as the buying of the equipment is happening at the time when the Curriculum is not yet ready. The tenders were cancelled last month.
TIn 2019, Former Minister of Employment, Labour Productivity and Skills Development, Mpho Balopi revealed that this is a matter requiring a certain sequence of events. Firstly, he said the ministry has to obtain and employ financial and other resources. Secondly, and assuming that these are obtained, good management processes require that they deploy the resources and then apply to, and invite the Botswana Qualifications Authority ( BQA) to come and assess for suitability for accreditation or otherwise.
“It is correct to say that a number, but not most of the courses which are offered in our brigade institutions and technical colleges are not accredited by the relevant authority, the BQA. Out of 28 courses, six are not accredited at all, the remaining 22 were registered and accredited by the Botswana Training Authority ( BOTA) under the old regulations, and remain operational to date. In a nutshell, the six programmes, which are unaccredited remain so because of insufficient resources of both equipment and human resource.
These resources ought to have been in place; in order to have facilitated the institutional, specifically for brigades or technical college compliance, which in turn, would have enabled the BQA to provide regulatory approval or accreditation as required,” said Balopi in Parliament then.
This lack of accreditation, according to the minister, is essentially a result of a misalignment between the timing of the offering of vocational courses which the economy needs and the availability of the financial resources to deliver the required outcomes. He said because of the mismatch, government ended up with 13 468 learners who were enrolled in programmes which were either unaccredited, or were beyond the physical intake capacity of the institutions at the beginning of year 2019. he same ministry has in February 2020, issued a tender for a Services Contract for the Provision of Full Time Vocational Training Programmes at Certificate Level for Department of Skills Development. Following request by the private sector to be engaged in the development of the Curriculum, MoTE has on 2nd December 2020, through a letter by Permanent Secretary, Professor Nelson Torto to one of the companies, indicated that the department of Teacher Training and Technical Education ( TT& TE), “to date developed and submitted 26 qualifications and programmes to BQA.”
Prof Torto explained that Extensive work has been done as there is progressive feedback from BQA in this regard. Hence it is not within immediate plans to outsource the development of curriculum and BQA is in the process to
approve and accredit the developed programmes, which will be offered at the four Technical Colleges, said the PS.
Regarding Oodi College of Applied Arts, it is alleged that the other bigger problem is that the people at the helm of vocational education do not understand the concept of this college. According to sources this is one college which should by now have played a significant role especially in the creative arts sector with theatre and film making at the centre. The institution was to focus on sculpturing, multimedia, dance, theatre, music, fashion design, electrical and applied sciences, among others. The status quo is that nothing is happening at the multimillion institution which could by now have ensured that the country has captured the theatre industry.
This publication can reveal that MoTE through its Ministerial Tender Committee cancelled tenders floated last year for equipment to be used at this learning institution. The ministry cancelled the tenders for Supply and Delivery of Machinery, Equipment and Tools for Fashion Designs, Applied Laboratory Sciences, Furniture Design and Manufacture and Tender No. MOTE/ MTC/ TT& TF/ SUPP/ 32/ 2021- 2022 for Visual Arts For the Department of Teacher Training and Technical Education at Oodi College of Applied Arts and Technology as advertised in the Government Gazette dated 19th December 2021. According to the ministry, the tenders were cancelled due to administrative issues.
Sources have revealed that if things were done right, there could not be any hiccups as there is available funds both from the industries and the Training Levy. Explaining the importance of doing curriculum with the industry, a senior official at MoTE said: “Industry defines skills needs and skills standards in their industry. Curriculum is dictated by the industry or relevant professional organization. Professionals in each subject area give the outline
Aon what is required and relevant to enable the trainees to be employable. The curriculum then becomes the standard upon which the job applicants are tested on. On the curriculum, the relevant participating Authorities from the Industry are acknowledged. South Africa equivalent of Industry in Curriculum is Designated as Sector Skill Council for Agriculture, Construction, Electrical, Mining, Plumbing and Textiles.” ccording to documents seen by this publication on Capacity and programmes - Programmes that were on offer by 2010 are hardly offered anymore as the industry considered them outdated due to the inability to revalidate the programmes within the specified periods. For these reasons, sources say it can confidently be concluded that there is no curriculum offer so all the capacities in the colleges are underutilised and equipment is sitting idle and getting outdated without being used. About 95 percent of the lecturers do not work and some are moonshining in the private colleges earning salaries corruptly, revealed a source close to the developments.
Documents further reveal that there are curriculum development policy processes and procedure that have completely been neglected and or ignored hence the difficulty in Programme development. BQA is said to be trying to invent the wheel. These policies and processes were in place by 1998, according to official documents in possession of
On the issue of concepts of the colleges, it has been established that the programmes for each college were conceptualized based on research, industry available, service industry needs and natural resources within each region, project government and private sector development programmes.
Both ministries have failed to respond to questionnaires sent to them mid last month and to the follow- up enquiries made including early this week.
Botswana Guardian.