Graduates unemployment hits crisis level
News
By Aubrey Lute
Fresh information from the government enclave highlights how the job situation for fresh graduates is worsening. The data also shows that Botswana’s graduate unemployment is at crisis level with the government asking ministries and departments to consider placing thousands of fresh graduates on the national internship and Tirelo Sechaba programmes.
In a savingram seen by this publication dated 26 October 2021, the Ministry of Youth, Empowerment, Sport and Culture Permanent Secretary Kago Ramokate suggests that his ministry is stuck with thousands of fresh graduates who have failed to secure employment on their own without government support. The ministry’s plea highlights the growing high levels of youth unemployment that the country is grappling with. The savingram was addressed to various Government ministries and departments requests them to consider graduates for opportunities in national internship and Tirelo Sechaba Programmes.
The Ministry explained that it implements the Botswana National Service Programme commonly known as Tirelo Sechaba and National Internship Programme to give young people opportunities to gain work readiness skills and allow them to serve their communities. Participants also receive an allowance for their welfare, Ramokate explained.
“As a result of the debilitating effects of COVID-19, placement of young people in these programme was minimized due to workplace requirements for compliance with health and safety measures. Movement restrictions, social distancing and the need to decongest offices meant that only a few participants could be accommodated in the public service,” the ministry said.
It also noted further that participants who completed their term of office were in most cases not replaced. “During this time, enrolment of young people drastically dropped and many aspiring young people were left idle with no immediate opportunities in sight,” the Ministry said. The savingram says that as the State of Emergency has come to an end and the disease situation is improving, ministries and departments are requested to consider uptake of interns and Tirelo Sechaba Participants. The Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development said it could only enroll participants where ministries have indicated availability of opportunities.
The Ministry currently has a total of 3,365 slots for Tirelo Sechaba and 3,571 slot for Internship placements. “We currently have a waiting list of 5,111graduates for internship broken down as follows, Medical Services 516, Sciences 392, Agricultural Science 266, Social Science 138, Transport Services, 173, Engineering 690, Architecture and Building Programs 289, Humanities, 222, Information and Communications Technology 103, education 279, Security 36, Business Administration 1608, Tourism and Hospitality 399,” said the ministry.
Ministries were therefore requested to assess their needs for Interns and Tirelo Sechaba participants and make requests for placement. A source at the government enclave said that these are fresh graduates and does not include graduates who have been “job hunting” before the COVID-19 outbreak. According to the source, graduate unemployment was exacerbated by the pandemic. These, he said, number mask the number of underemployed youth in the country and there are fears that whether one has a degree or not his or her dream job might remain unreachable a little longer.
It is also understood that ministries have sent out pleas to various department requesting them to place the graduates under the national internship and Tirelo Sechaba programmes. A report that was published by the African Development Bank (AFDB) found that Botswana was among 13 countries in SADC that experienced double digit youth unemployment which stood at 37.5 percent between 2011 and 2019 and got worse following the outbreak of COVID-19.
“Countries that experienced an increase in youth unemployment include Namibia, Mauritius, South Africa, Botswana and Angola,” the AFDB observed. According to the report, “Overall, the high level of unemployment, especially among the youth, is due to inadequate skills, skills mismatch, limited economic diversification, and low absorption capacity of industries, growth models driven by capital intensive sectors (eg diamonds in Botswana), a lack of functional institutions, slow economic growth, and a lack of pro-employment macro-economic policies.”
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President Mokgweetsi Masisi says the issue of sustainable natural resources management has always been an important part of Botswana’s national development agenda.
Masisi was speaking this week on the occasion of a public lecture at Virginia Polytechnic, under theme, “Merging Conservation, Democracy and Sustainable Development in Botswana.”
Botswana, according to Masisi, holds the view that the environment is fragile and as such, must be managed and given the utmost protection to enable the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“It is necessary that we engage one another in the interchange of ideas, perspectives, visualizations of social futures, and considerations of possible strategies and courses of action for sustainable development,” said Masisi.
On the other hand, dialogue, in the form of rigorous democratic discourse among stakeholders presents another basis for reconfiguring how people act on their environments, with a view to conserving its resources that “we require to meet our socio-economic development needs on a sustainable basis,” Masisi told attendees at the public lecture.
He said government has a keen interest in understanding the epidemiology and ecology of diseases of both domestic and wild animals. “It is our national interest to forestall the dire consequences of animal diseases on our communities livelihoods.”
President Masisi hoped that both Botswana and Virginia could help each other in curbing contagious diseases of wildlife.
“We believe that Virginia Tech can reasonably share their experiences, research insights and advances in veterinary sciences and medicines, to help us build capacity for knowledge creation and improve efforts of managing and containing contagious diseases of wildlife. The ground is fertile for entering into such a mutually beneficial partnership.”
When explaining environmental issues further, Masisi said efforts of conservation and sustainable development might at times be hampered by the emergence and recurrence of diseases when pathogens mutate and take host of more than one species.
“Water pollution also kills aquatic life, such as fish, which is one of humanity’s much deserved sources of food. In this regard, One Health Approach imposes ecological responsibility upon all of us to care for the environment and the bio-diversity therein.”
He said the production and use of animal vaccines is an important space and tool for conservation, particularly to deal with trans-border animal diseases.
“In Botswana, our 43-year-old national premier pharmaceutical institution called Botswana Vaccine Institute has played its role well. Through its successful production of highly efficacious Foot and Mouth vaccines, the country is able to contain this disease as well as supply vaccines to other countries in the sub-region.:
He has however declared that there is need for more help, saying “We need more capacitation to deal with and contain other types of microbial that affect both animals and human health.”

President Mokgweetsi Masisi has expressed a strong worry over elephants killing people in Botswana. When speaking in Virginia this week, Masisi said it is unfortunate that Batswana have paid a price with their own blood through being attacked by elephants.
“Communities also suffer unimaginable economic losses yearly when their crops are eaten by the elephants. In spite of such incidents of human-elephant conflict, our people embrace living together with the animals. They fully understand wildlife conservation and its economic benefits in tourism.”
In 2018, Nthobogang Samokwase’s father was attacked by an elephant when travelling from the fields, where he stayed during the cropping season.
It was reported that the man couldn’t run because of his age. He was found trampled by the elephant and was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.
In the same year, in Maun, a 57-year-old British woman was attacked by an elephant at Boro and died upon arrival at the hospital. The woman was with her Motswana partner, and were walking dogs in the evening.
Last month, a Durban woman named Carly Marshall survived an elephant attack while on holiday in the bush in Botswana. She was stabbed by one of the elephant’s tucks through the chest and was left with bruises. Marshall also suffered several fractured ribs from the ordeal.
President Masisi Botswana has the largest population of African elephants in the world, totaling more than 130 000. “This has been possible due to progressive conservation policies, partnerships with the communities, and investment in wildlife management programmes.”
In order to benefit further from wildlife, Masisi indicated that government has re-introduced controlled hunting in 2019 after a four-year pause. “The re-introduction of hunting was done in an open, transparent and democratic way, giving the communities an opportunity to air their views. The funds from the sale of hunting quota goes towards community development and elephant conservation.”
He stressed that for conservation to succeed, the local people must be involved and derive benefits from the natural resources within their localities.
“There must be open and transparent consultations which involve all sectors of the society. It is against this backdrop that as a country, we lead the continent on merging conservation, democracy and sustainable development.”
Masisi stated that Botswana is open to collaborative opportunities, “particularly with identifiable partners such as Virginia Tech, in other essential areas such as conservation, and the study of the interplay among the ecology of diseases of wild animals and plants, and their effects on human health and socio-economic development.”

Minister for State President Kabo Morwaeng says government will continue to make resources available in terms of financial allocations and human capital to ensure that Botswana achieves the ideal of eradicating HIV and AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.
Morwaeng was speaking this morning in Gaborone at the High-Level Advocacy event to accelerate HIV Prevention in Botswana. He said the National AIDS and Health Promotion Agency (NAPHA), in partnership with UNAIDS, UN agencies, the Global Fund and PEPFAR, have started a process of developing transition readiness plan for sustainability of HIV prevention and treatment programmes.
“It is important for us, as a country that has had a fair share of donor support in the response to an epidemic such as HIV and AIDS, to look beyond the period when the level of assistance would have reduced, or ceased, thus calling for domestic financing for all areas which were on donor support.”
Morwaeng said this is important as the such a plan will guarantee that all the gains accrued from the response with donor support will be sustained until the end when “we reach the elimination of HIV and AIDS as a public health threat by 20230,” he said.
“I commit to continue support efforts towards strengthened HIV prevention, accentuating HIV primary prevention and treatment as prevention towards Zero New Infections, Zero Stigma, Discrimination and Zero AIDS related death, to end AIDS in Botswana.”
He reiterated that government commits to tackle legislative, policy and programming challenges that act as barriers to the achievement of the goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat.
In the financial year 2022/2023, a total of 119 Civil Society Organizations, including Faith Based Organizations, were contracted with an amount of P100 million to implement HIV and NCDs prevention activities throughout the country, and the money was drawn from the Consolidated Fund.
Through an upcoming HIV Prevention Symposium, technical stakeholders will use outcomes to develop the Botswana HIV Prevention Acceleration Road Map for 2023-2025.
Morwaeng stated that government will support and ensure that Botswana plays its part achieving the road map. He said there is need to put hands on the deck to ensure that Botswana sustains progress made so far in the fight against HIV and AIDS.
“There are tremendous achievements thus far to, reach and surpass the UNAIDS fast track targets of 95%- 95%- 95% by the year 2025. As reflected by the BAIS preliminary results of 2021, we now stand at 95- 98- 98 against the set targets.”
“These achievements challenge us to now shift our gears and strive to know who are the remaining 5% for those aware of their HIV status, 2% of enrolment on treatment by those aware of their status and 2% of viral suppression by those on treatment.”
Explaining this further, Morwaeng said shift in gears should extend to coming up with robust strategies of determining where these remaining people are as well as how they will be reached with the necessary services.
“These are just some of the many variables that are required to ensure that as a country, we are well positioned to reaching the last mile of our country’s response to the HIV and AIDS pandemic.”