Africa-Press – Botswana. Botho University scholarship for refugee children expresses human solidarity, compassion and commitment to inclusivity as it targets the vulnerable and disadvantaged.
Speaking recently at the launch of the Botho University 20 refugee children scholarship, estimated at over P4 million, Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Mr Nelson Ramaotwana said one of the government pillars was inclusivity and quality life as evidenced in the scholarship that targeted the vulnerable to be included in the academic ecosystem.
For many years, he said refugee enrolment to higher and tertiary education had been much lower as the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees did not offer sponsorship for post-secondary education, but only talked about basic education, from primary school to secondary school.
Such an arrangement, he highlighted meant that refugee students faced challenges in accessing tertiary education upon completion of secondary education. Therefore, he said the ministry was compelled to attempt to assist refugee children as they had been receiving requests for tertiary education sponsorship.
He also said the ministry responsible for refugee welfare had been receiving requests for tertiary education sponsorship for refugee children and was compelled to attempt to assist. He said it took bold steps to approach like-minded institutions such as Botho University to request for educational support for the young people.
Mr Ramaotwana said the majority of the candidates were high performers with eight out of 14 obtaining over 40 points in their BGCSE in 2024, while in 2023, there were three out of five and six out of 14. This, he said demonstrated candidates’ resilience and determination to improve their prospects in life, adding that Botho University opening doors to them, restored their dignity, nurtured their potential and broke the cycle of exclusion.
For his part, Assistant Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Mr Augustine Nyatanga said Section 3 of the Constitution of Botswana gave any individual fundamental protection of Rights regardless of where they came from, race and religion, giving the government the mandate to protect the rights of refugee children.
Mr Nyatanga said as a human rights-centred government, they made a deliberate decision to take some of the asylum seekers out of prison to Dukwi Refugee Camp. He said there were over 300 refugees with 228 children who were already getting depressed. He said 45 children were ready to sit for BGCSE examinations. He said the admission of refugee children was in line with the attainment of Pillar 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Member of Parliament for Nata/Gweta where Dukwi Refugee Camp is located, Mr Lawrence Ookeditse said he was proud of the government’s move to get assistance for the children. Mr Ookeditse observed that Botswana had wasted talents in sport, science and others, for the longest time and that non-merchants community, refugees were natural vendors. He said refugees were not a security threat and in the 1970s, Botswana’s founding president, Sir Seretse Khama declared that Botswana would continue to receive refugees.
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