22 Feb 2015

Assistant Ministers of Education and Skills Development, Mr Moiseraele Goya and Dr Unity Dow visited the University of Botswana (UB ) facilities on Thursday, February 19 to familiriase themselves with the ongoing and completed projects at the facility. 

Among the facilities that they visited were the conference centre, campus plaza, campus indoor sports centre and UB technical hospital.

At the end of the tour, Mr Goya said there was clear demonstrated that the subventions that government had been making to the university, had been put into good use.

He said Botswana had been a pacesetter in many fronts, and that the country was regarded as a very good democratic country in Africa as well as being prudent in managing financial resources.

He said Botswana had also set another pace by the facilities at the university.

He said the indoor sports centre was the first of its kind in Africa if not the rest of the world.

Regarding, the medical school, he said it would go a long way in making sure that ultimately as a country, there were enough doctors to work in all clinics around the country.

For her part, Dr Dow said she was impressed by what the university was doing in regard to different set of facilities that they visited.

She said the emphasis by the management of the university to share facilities was very important.

Dr Dow noted that the vehicle free space created a feel of the university and also created a good learning environment for students. She said government would ensure that maintenance of the facilities was availed at the same time looking at how much it costs to educate a student.

The UB deputy Vice Chancellor (Finance and Administration), Mr Dawid Katzke said the biggest challenge they had was that of maintenance.

“The international benchmark is that if you do not spend at least four per cent of the value of your facility on maintenance and preventative maintenance, your facility is basically going backwards,” he said.

Mr Katzke said the new facilities at UB covers 80 000 square metres of new office space and new space that needs maintenance.

He said average cost of the budget of the university was P1.5 billion per 19 052 students.

Mr Katzke noted that Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) received an average of P148 299 per student as compared to the P54 000 they receive.

“The sooner we get to the funding formula that really fund universities at the same bases, the better it will be,” he said. ENDS