Gaborone President Fetus Mogae has hail the opening of Limkokwing University of Creative Technology as a novel and “exciting” chapter in the development of tertiary education in Botswana.

Officially opening the Limkokwing University temporary campus at Fairgrounds Mall on Monday. Mr Mogae acknowledged the amount of investment by Limkokwing in Botswana.

“The pace that you have established yourselves in recent months is a reminder to all of us of the level of efficiency that we must reach if we are to keep up in this fast moving world.”

As such, he vowed to remain supportive in ensuring that Limkokwing and other universities are given the chance to help transform Botswana into an educational hub for the whole world.

“It is my further understanding that as a global university, Limkokwing has the capacity to tap into the intellectual trends as well as resources.”

Until recently, Mr Mogae said, the burden of providing tertiary education has rested almost solely on the shoulders of government alone.

Thus government intended to seek enhanced partnerships with private sector institutions such as Limkokwing.

The President said local tertiary education institution have over the past year absorbed 26 553 students while another 7 500 were placed externally.

Mr Mogae affirmed that the numbers will continue to expand given the opening of a technical college in Francistown which will enrol another 1200 students and two colleges of applied arts and technology that would enroll 3600 students.

All these efforts, the President said, are helping Botswana to move towards the draft Tertiary Education Policy to raise access to tertiary education from the current seven per cent, among the age group of 18-24 year olds, to at least 17 per cent by 2016.

“this goal, once obtained, will place our country on par with other leading middle income countries around the world.”

Mr Mogae said the development of local private tertiary education sub sector is of great strategic importance for Botswana given that the cost of external placement is very expensive.

He regretted that presently government spends P280 million annually to place students in South Africa alone.

“Undoubtedly it is both financially and socially advantageous to have students, especially at undergraduate level, undertake their studies locally,” he said.

Other advantages to increasing placement of students in qualified local private institutions, he said include growth and further improvement in the quality of the institutions themselves, as well as creating domestic employment opportunities in a labour intensive industry.

“While the introduction of new technologies is a key factor in our ability to realize this vision, it will be given more crucial for us to train our youth to be creative, as well as highly skilled workers.”

The President further said recent studies describe workers in demand in today’s economy as ones with an ability to be flexible while working as a team.

He noted that such workers “ought to be versatile and creative as well as disciplined and highly skilled.”

President Mogae also launched a national creativity competition titled “From Vision to Transformation,” while education minister Jacob Nkate launched Limkokwing University Botswana website. Currently the school has 1400 students and is planning to reach 5000 students after the July intake.