Lessons from Botswana Education Hub

Botswana Education Hub (BEH) mission is crystal clear: Position Botswana as the regional centre of excellence in education, training and research in Southern Africa.

BEH, a department under the Ministry of Education and Skills Development in Botswana, last week participated in this year’s Malawi International Trade Fair (Mitf) with a clear objective of luring local students to study in their country.

BEH coordinated and pulled together about seven tertiary intuitions from Botswana for the local trade fair and fully participated in Mitf which ended on Sunday June 2. Over the past two years, BEH has participated in similar exhibitions held in South Africa, Namibia Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Speaking in an interview during Mitf, BEH marketing and public relations officer Oarabile Phefo was positive about leaving an everlasting impression even long after they are gone back to Gaborone.

“We would like to provide the best services in the region and stop people from flying to Europe to access education. We are participating here because we know prospective students from Malawi will still remember our tuition services and come back to us. Whether this will happen this year or next year or in the next five years does not matter. What is important is for us to leave the impression,” said Phefo.

One of the participating institutions, New Era College head of marketing and public relations Gagan Chawla, said they are ready to partner with Malawi intuitions.

“We will assess the demand for our services and we may even establish satellite offices here in Malawi. We are currently offering programmes in telecommunication, construction, travel, tourism and hospitality but we are ready to offer beyond these depending on the demand,” said Chawla.

Clearly, Botswana Government believes that education is more than just a means of acquiring and imparting knowledge and skills. Botswana views education as a vital component in trade in services. That is with proper investment and promotion their education sector should be able to rake in proceeds as the case is with tourism.

That is why BEH has the confidence and drive to openly say their mission is to conquer the Southern Africa and make themselves the centre of excellence in education, training and research.

Recently, India held the 9th conclave organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with Export-Import Bank of India. India invited over 900 delegates from 45 countries in Africa to participate in the conclave. The conclave envisaged to take the bilateral engagement between India and Africa to a new level. More than 500 projects worth nearly $70 billion were discussed during the three-day India-Africa project partnership conclave.

However, according to Exploits University registrar Benjamin Sambiri who attended the meet, Malawi was only represented by the Lilongwe-based university.

Sambiri said it was unfortunate that they were the only institution from Malawi while other countries were represented by government departments.

Commenting on the ability of Malawi to turn education into a viable sector which can churn in foreign exchange on Thursday, Business Consult Africa managing director Henry Kachaje said the country can as well decide to be the hub of education.

“Malawi, with its peace and warm people, should have equally decided to be the education hub. We usually over look the resources that we have and how best we can use them to benefit the economy. Actually the United Kingdom makes a lot of money through education related fees,” he said.

World Trade Organisation (WTO) notes the importance of trade in services to land locked countries such as Botswana and Malawi.

WTO Chief of Staff Arancha Gonzalez, in a speech in New York in March this year noted that services sector is vital to trade, especially to landlocked countries.

“One of the [recent] key findings is that services play a greater role than we previously thought in international trade. What does this mean for landlocked countries? It means that greater attention to this sector — which is not as intimately affected by ‘landlockedness’ as manufacturing or agriculture — should be a priority for the group moving forward,” said she.

Malawi suffers from chronic poor trade imbalance with donor aid saving the balance of payments problems. The country currently over relies on tobacco proceeds. That is as a way achieve more export growth the country might as well look at expanding its education sector not just as a means of imparting knowledge and skills to Malawians but to rake in more foreign exchange and create employment.