{"id":70359,"date":"2025-06-07T08:16:19","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T08:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/maele-advocates-for-brigades-transformation"},"modified":"2025-06-07T08:23:48","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T08:23:48","slug":"maele-advocates-for-brigades-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/maele-advocates-for-brigades-transformation","title":{"rendered":"Maele Advocates for Brigades Transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. <\/strong><\/span><b>As part of broader government initiative to rebrand and modernise vocational education, brigades will be renamed Vocational Training Colleges, Minister of Tertiary Education, Mr Prince Maele has said.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The shift he said was to improve the perception and value of education from these institutions, ultimately contributing to skilling more workforce and addressing high unemployment rates.<\/p>\n<p>Addressing Madiba and Mahalapye brigade\u2019s staff and students after tour of the facilities on Tuesday, Mr Maele said the most visible change to renaming brigades to vocational colleges reflected a move towards greater smartness and more change that was positive.<\/p>\n<p>He said some people think brigades were for those who failed at school, indicating however, that handiwork was the best and well-recognised type of work globally.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Maele said that many developed countries relied on vocational training, urging the youth to embrace this path toward economic growth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGovernment is advocating for infrastructure upgrades and modern equipment to improve the facilities and programmes offered by these institutions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The Minister said government was also working on equalising student allowances for vocational to the rest of tertiary institutions to remove prejudice that historically disadvantaged vocational learners, adding that by August, the allowance will increase to P1 900.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Maele who is also the MP for Tswapong North said that government emphasised the importance of skills development and potential of vocational training in addressing unemployment particularly among young people.<\/p>\n<p>He said the push to align vocational programmes with industry demands was to ensure that the national skills framework produced graduates equipped with skills needed in the job market.<\/p>\n<p>He said they would bring brigades lecturers to the standard of those at vocational colleges by re-tooling and upskilling them.<\/p>\n<p>Madiba Brigades principal, Ms Nametso Gopolang appreciated the minister\u2019s tour, recalling that when they started in 1972 together with Shashe and Tswelelopele at Ramotswa they registered only students who failed Standard Seven and the unprivileged ones.<\/p>\n<p>She said currently they had 288 students and 59 employees including non-teaching staff, offering Auto Mechanics, Welding, Carpentry, Brick molding and Electrical courses. Challenges she said was lack of funds, noting that Ms Gopolang their workshops and offices needed maintenance.<\/p>\n<p>She said lecturers and staff were stagnant on the same post, with no promotion prospects.<\/p>\n<p>Madiba Brigade staff representative, Mr Tsholofelo Kaelo said despite winning the scarce skills allowances case, they had not been paid. He added that though not paid for extra-curricular activities, they continued to volunteer citing trophies and medals won. Mahalapye Brigade\u2019s Mr Boitshwarelo Beo said that their brigade was doing well in Dressmaking Trade C and B, clothing design, technology and accounting and business courses.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Botswana<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. As part of broader government initiative to rebrand and modernise vocational education, brigades will be renamed Vocational Training Colleges, Minister of Tertiary Education, Mr Prince Maele has said. The shift he said was to improve the perception and value of education from these institutions, ultimately contributing to skilling more workforce and addressing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":70358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[234],"class_list":["post-70359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-botswana"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Maele Advocates for Brigades Transformation - Botswana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As part of broader government initiative to rebrand and modernise vocational education, brigades will be renamed Voca ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/maele-advocates-for-brigades-transformation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Maele Advocates for Brigades Transformation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As part of broader government initiative to rebrand and modernise vocational education, brigades will be renamed Voca ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/maele-advocates-for-brigades-transformation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-06-07T08:16:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-06-07T08:23:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2025\/06\/sm_1749271937.351817.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1660\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1104\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/maele-advocates-for-brigades-transformation#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/maele-advocates-for-brigades-transformation\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Maele Advocates for Brigades Transformation\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-06-07T08:16:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-06-07T08:23:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/maele-advocates-for-brigades-transformation\"},\"wordCount\":452,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/maele-advocates-for-brigades-transformation#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2025\/06\/sm_1749271937.351817.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Botswana\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/maele-advocates-for-brigades-transformation#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/maele-advocates-for-brigades-transformation\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/maele-advocates-for-brigades-transformation\",\"name\":\"Maele Advocates for Brigades Transformation - 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