Africa-Press – Botswana. The Minister of Education and Skills Development, Dr Douglas Letsholathebe has informed Parliament that his ministry recorded more than 50 per cent of high school leavers who did not make it to tertiary education in 2020 and 2022.
Responding to a question asked by Specially Elected MP Dr Unity Dow on Monday, Dr Letsholathebe said though his ministry did not keep data of all high school leavers who did not make it to tertiary education, the ministry only kept the data of students who were sponsored by the government into different tertiary education programmes.
He said the data indicated that the percentage of high school leavers who did not make it to tertiary education through government sponsorship was 32.2 per cent, 47.7 per cent, 51 per cent, 56.1 per cent and 49.7 per cent in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 and 2022 respectively, translating to 11 583, 17 405, 18 633, 21 125 and 17 494 in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively.
He noted that some of the high school leavers ended up under private sponsorship into tertiary institutions, thus it was difficult to account for this number.
Furthermore Dr Letsholathebe explained that these numbers were inclusive of high school leavers on self-sponsorship at various levels of education, individuals studying through alternative Non-Governmental Sponsorship programmes and individuals retaking examinations to improve their results in order to meet admission requirements at tertiary institutions and consequently securing government sponsorship.
In addition, he said, the number also included school leavers who had been absorbed in various sectors of the economy.
However, Dr Letsholathebe stressed that he did not expect any of these high school leavers to be still living at home, unemployable and unable to self-support 10 years after finishing Form Five as it was expected that these individuals would be absorbed in the various sectors of the economy in the event they did not qualify for admission at tertiary and vocational training institutions.
In addition, he said there were various economic and social programmes available to the youth, which they were expected to leverage on.
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